Snapshots
by Morning Lilies
Summary: A series of post-DH one-shots spanning most characters and relationships. Everything from Lily needing her brothers to scare away her fears to Teddy getting lost in London to Andromeda visiting Sirius's grave. Friendsip, romance, sibling,parent-child..
1. Three in the Morning

**A/N: I had this scene keep playing itself in my head over and over again and I had to write it out. I really love James, Al, and Lily! :D They're so much fun to write. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I liked writing it. And if you like it, I'd love some feedback! **

The hushed stillness of a late-summer night hung heavily in the air, silvery moonlight glowing palely through the windows, giving off just barely enough light to make out the large trunk sitting half-packed in the middle of the room. Then the door creaked open just enough for a small figure to slip through it and, avoiding the trunk, make her way to the bed.

"Al? Are you awake?" she whispered, voice loud in the quiet night.

When the tangle of sheets she knew to be her brother didn't so much as stir, Lily prodded it impatiently. "Al, wake up!" There was a muffled groan, but nothing else.

Lily reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp and then launched herself at the heap of sheets.. "Albus Severus Potter! Wake up!" she said loudly, punctuating each syllable with a slap.

"Ow! Gerroff me!" Albus croaked, fighting free of the blankets to shove his sister roughly off his bed.

Unabashed, Lily slid to the floor and watched her brother grope blindly for his glasses, wild hair even more disheveled than usual. Albus shoved his glasses haphazardly on his face and squinted at the alarm clock, groaning when he saw the time.

"Lily, it's three in the morning! Go back to bed!" and he flopped face-first onto the mattress, pulling his pillow over his head.

"But I can't sleep," Lily told him, drawing her knees up to her chin.

"Doesn't mean you have to take it out on those of us who can," Albus grumbled from under his pillow.

Lily pushed herself up on her knees and shuffled forward to lean on the mattress. "Can I sit with you on the train tomorrow? James won't let me sit with him and Fred and Aaron and I don't want to be alone."

Albus rolled over to peer blearily up at her anxious face, dark eyes wide and imploring. He rolled his eyes at her. "You won't be alone, Lils. Hugo's starting tomorrow too. You remember Hugo? Ron and Hermione's kid, gangly, red hair, been joined at the hip with him since birth?"

Lily rolled her eyes back at him. "I _know, _Al."

"Great, now can I go back to sleep?"

Lily sat back, biting her lip. Albus sighed. "Sure, Lil, you can sit with us. Rosie won't let me kick you out, anyway."

Lily nodded, sniffling and Albus, raising himself up enough to look at her over the edge of the mattress, was startled to see tears streaking down her cheeks.

"Oh, Lily, come on, don't cry!" he begged, scrambling up in bed. "You can sit with us on every train ride 'til I leave Hogwarts! Don't cry, Lily, please!"

But the tears just fell faster and Albus was at a complete loss as to what to do. Lily gave a shuddering sob and scrambled up onto Albus's bed, burying her face in his pillow.

"Lily…" Albus said helplessly, staring at her flaming pigtails.

"What's the matter with her?" came a sleepy voice.

Albus looked around to see James slouching half-awake in the doorway, squinting at Lily's huddled form.

Albus threw up his hands. "I have no idea! She came in here, beat me awake, and started bawling! I'm getting Dad," he added, swinging his legs out of bed.

"Let 'em sleep, Al," James told him, slouching over to sink down on Albus's bed and shoving Albus back down, too. "Dad's just got back from a mission and Mum's been living on caffeine for three days straight to finish that article for _The Profit_."

"But…" Albus protested, gesturing towards Lily sopping into his pillow.

James reached around him and poked her hard in the back. "Oi, squirt, what's your problem?"

Lily pushed herself up, tears still flooding down her face, and looked at her brothers incredulously. "We're leaving in the morning!"

James and Albus exchanged a bewildered look.

"Yeah, so?" James asked.

"You've been dying to go to Hogwarts practically since Teddy went!" Albus said in exasperation. "You're first complete sentence was 'I want to go to Hogwarts'!"

"but – but," Lily gulped, "w-what if it's terrible? What if I'm no good at magic? What if I don't have any friends? What if Hugo gets put into a different house and forgets all about me? What if I'm in Slytherin?"

"Whoa, calm down," James said, holding up his hands. "You've got nothing to worry about. First of all, Hogwarts is great. And if Al managed to make a friend that he wasn't related to, you're going to be the most popular kid in your class."

"Hey!" Albus objected, but James ignored him.

"And as for Hugo, you guys practically share a brain. You could get sorted into Slytherin – what Al, you know she's the most devious creature ever put on the planet, need I remind you of the magic marker episode last week? Anyway, you could get sorted into Slytherin and you and Hue would still be two halves of the same coin, or whatever it is they say. Believe me, you won't have to worry about being lonely at Hogwarts. Half of Gryffindor is made up by Weasleys. You'll be begging for some alone time soon."

Lily sniffled, mopping her eyes with her hand, and Albus leaned across her to pull a chocolate frog out of the drawer of his bedside table.

"Here, Lil," he said, handing her the frog. "And as for not being good at magic, you've got nothing to worry about. Remember the first time you used magic and blew James's train set apart because he wouldn't let you play with it? Even he was impressed once he stopped being so shocked. If you could do that when you were five, you'll probably be top of your year! You'll have a great time at Hogwarts, you'll see."

"You think so?" Lily asked, biting into the frog and scrutinizing her brothers. They both nodded earnestly.

"'Course we do," James told her, yanking one of her pigtails in that oh-so-affectionate brotherly way of his.

"And if you have any trouble, there's a whole band of Weasley cousins who've got your back," Albus added, smiling.

Lily smiled too.

"And if any of the Slytherins give me a hard time, will you beat them up?" she asked.

"Sure thing," James grinned, flexing his muscles jokingly.

"Not _all_ Slytherins are bad though," Albus reminded her. "Look at Scorp. He's in Slytherin."

"Yeah, but he doesn't count," James told his brother, rolling his eyes. "He's got honorary Gryffindor status. He hangs out with all Gryffindors and cheers for our team when we're not playing him. You can't lump him in with the rest of those creeps."

"James, Dad says –"Albus started, picking up the frequent argument he and James had over evilness of Slytherin house.

"Dad's got to say stuff like that," James interrupted, waving his hand impatiently. "He's the savior of the wizarding world and all of that. If he didn't preach tolerance and equality he'd be kind of a hypocrite."

Lily curled up on Albus's bed, listening to the familiar sound of her brothers arguing and roughhousing. When James shoved Albus off the bed and he landed on the floor with a loud thud, smacking his head on his trunk, she decided it was time to intervene.

"Albie, can I sleep in here tonight?" She asked sleepily, tugging the sheet over herself.

Albus picked himself up off the floor, rubbing his head. Normally he'd tell her to scram, but he didn't want her to start bawling again. "I guess so," he said exhaustedly.

James had already stretched out across the end of Albus's bed, legs dangling off the side. Albus sighed and rolled his eyes at his brother and sister. "Budge up," he told Lily, crawling over James to slide in next to her.

Lily was lulled back to sleep by the comforting sound of her brothers' slow, even breathing, the sound that had always driven away her nightmares when she was small.

**A/N: Hi again! Right, so I was thinking of adding to this if anybody liked it. I wouldn't really continue this story, but I'd do snapshots of different characters and moments post DH, most likely. Kind of showing their lives afterwards. It'd be sort of a companion to the reading-the-books story I'm working on with Bookworm1256, at least it would be in the same world, maybe expanding on some of the memories that are brought up in that story. But you wouldn't have to read that story to read this one. It would be more like "Teddy", which is another story I'm working on on Bookworm's profile, except, obviously that one focuses on Teddy and his relationship with Harry.**

**Anyways, let me know what you think and if you want to see more of the next gen and everyone else after the war! **


	2. Fears

**A/N: I've had this done for a while, but I've been leery about publishing it. Also FF wouldn't let me change the summary for a while. I don't know, you can tell me what you think of it. Al's third year seems to be on my mind for some reason, but if I add to this, the other chapters will be all over the board. **

**Disclaimer: I disclaim! Just borrowing some characters. No money being made at all. **

Professor Marcus Lancing had held the post of Defense against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts for twenty-one years; ever since the end of the last war. He had dealt with an enormous amount from his students in that time, from severe personal phobias (mainly from those students who had been directly involved in the war or who had suffered close losses), trauma from curriculum that struck a little too close to home, (again, mainly from those who were close to the war) as well as physical and mental handicaps (namely from those students who had fought or been wounded during the war). But even Professor Lancing was not prepared for what Albus Potter's first encounter with a bogart would bring up.

It was the first DADA class of the term for the third years, and, as Lancing had done every year since he began teaching, he treated his students to a practical lesson. He picked up the idea from Professor Lupin, whom Lancing had heard ringing praise about as the best Defense professor in nearly two decades, and it had been met with relative success each year. Having your classmates help you confront your fears was unifying and helped students build self-esteem, and most found it an entertaining and exciting beginning to the year.

Albus stood at the back of the line, nervously twirling his wand between his fingers. Rose, waited eagerly for her turn with the bogart beside him, and even Scorpius Malfoy, their unlikely best friend, seemed excited to have a go as they all watched their classmates one by one conquer their fears (literally, if not figuratively).

"What are you so worried about, Al?" Rose inquired glancing at Albus's apprehensive expression. "You're Dad's already taught us how to do it, remember? He wouldn't let us wonder around Grimauld Place until we learned. Even let us use magic outside of school."

"He did?" Scorpius asked, looking impressed. "And did you actually use it?" he couldn't help but add with a smirk to Rose, ever the stickler for rules.

"That's not the point," Rose told him, blushing slightly.

"I know he did," Albus said to Rose, biting his lip. "It's just… well, I didn't actually come across a bogart. I've never really done it before…"

"You'll be fine," Rose assured him confidently. "You're always pretty good at defense. There's nothing to worry about."

But Albus knew there was. Unlike the rest of his classmates seemed to be, Albus was not sure what his bogart was going to turn into. He was scared of a lot of things, but he didn't really consider them his _deepest _fear. At least he hoped none of them were. He could only imagine what the rest of the class would do if his bogart turned out to be James in a reaper mask or Lily's vicious pet rabbit, pinky. (No one ever believed him when he tried to explain how the thing tried to rip off his hand whenever he got near it.) And the things he was really, really afraid of… well, he didn't know how to turn them funny.

In reality, Albus had been dreading this class all summer; quite the opposite of most of his friends. He thought he knew, somewhere in his gut, what his deepest fear was, but it was so horrifying that he was even afraid to think about the bogart taking its shape.

_It'll probably be something stupid_, Albus tried to reassure himself as he moved forward with the line and Rose rolled up her sleeves in preparation for her turn.

With a loud crack, the hissing rattlesnake that Emily Fletcher had tied up like a pretzel turned into a luridly dressed clown, leering through dramatic face paint and cackling hysterically as it advanced on Rose, raising its gloved hands towards her. Rose stood her ground without even flinching and raised her wand.

"_Riddikulus!_" she cried in a strong, fearless voice, and a second later the clown popped as if it were inflated, brightly colored shreds exploding around the room.

"Well done Miss Weasley!" Lancing called above the class's laughter, and Rose beamed as she stepped aside for Al, giving him an encouraging grin and a wink as he passed her on slightly shaky legs.

_Well, the moment's come,_ Albus thought, taking a deep gulp of air to steel himself. _No turning back now._

A loud crack echoed yet again around the room and Albus raised his wand. But the image before him froze the blood in his veins and left him breathless. Two bodies were sprawled on the classroom floor, ashen and lifeless. His mother was crumpled in a heap, her firey hair fanning out behind her, eyes closed, as white and still as marble. And beside her, his father lay spread-eagled, gray and still, his eyes, so like Albus's own, open and empty, staring unseeingly up at his son. A pool of dark blood was slowly expanding from both of them.

The room fell silent in horror as Albus choked, feeling as if something very heavy had slammed into his torso.

"R-r-riddikulus!" he gasped, waving his wand, trying to make that horrible image go away. But e hadn't the slightest idea as to how to turn this amusing. "Riddikulus! R-riddikulus!" he repeated, voice cracking and rising with every stammered attempt. He stumbled backwards, waving his wand madly as the classroom seemed to close in around him and all he could see were his parents' white faces, frozen and veiled by death.

Albus couldn't breathe. Wanting only to get away from this grisly sight straight out of his worst nightmares, he whirled and sprinted from the room, knocking stunned people aside as he fled and barely noticing. Distantly, he heard Rose, Scorpius, and Professor Lancing calling his name, but he was out of earshot in a second and didn't look back.

But he couldn't escape the bogart. His parents' corpses swam in front of his eyes as if burned onto his retinas; cold, unmoving, far beyond his reach. His stomach lurched and he swerved into the nearest boys' bathroom, diving into a stall and not bothering even to shut the door as his insides heaved.

Scorpius, who had been hot on Rose's heels as she raced after her cousin without even bothering to glance at their professor, found Al slumped on the dirty, tiled bathroom floor, shaking and sweaty and still looking sick. He grabbed a handful of paper towels and ran them under cold water, wrung them out, and handed them to Albus.

"Here," he mumbled, sinking down to the floor beside his friend.

Albus took them wordlessly and wiped his mouth.

"You… gonna be okay?" Scorpius asked anxiously, knowing it was a stupid question. "Do I need to get Madam Pomfrey or anything?"

Albus shook his head and dragged himself to his feet, staggering over to a sink to wash the horrible taste out of his mouth. Scorpius followed, frowning.

After he'd splashed water over his face and wiped it off with his sleeve, Albus looked up at Scorpius in the mirror and muttered, "Some Gryffindor I am, running away from my fears, huh?"

Scorpius had no idea what to say to him. Rose was the one who knew what to say. All the time. But she was stuck outside the door. "No…" he protested feebly. "I'd have run away, too, if I'd seen… that."

Albus grimaced. "I bet I'm the first one ever to fail the bogart practical. Everyone else has normal, legit fears and I pull out that… I must have looked so stupid."

"Al, my bogart is a bumble bee. You can't get much stupider than that," Scorpius told him, trying to cheer him up.

"Yeah, but you're allergic to bees." Albus pointed out.

"And you've seen a lot of graves," Scorpius retorted quietly. "I mean, you're dad's parents… Teddy's parents…. No one can blame you for being afraid of that with what you've grown up around."

"James's bogar was a shark," Albus muttered. "And he barely had time to look at it before he turned into a giant shark squeaky toy with a pink hat."

"Yeah, but…listen Al," Scorpius struggled to find a way to make his friend feel better. "All of our fears are the stupid ones. Clowns and sharks and bees and snakes… we're the cowards for being afraid of them. We can fight back against those things, but you've actually got a real fear. There's nothing you could do about yours. You've got a reason to be afraid of it."

But this was clearly not the right thing to say. Albus blanched, going, if possible, even whiter than before and clenching the sides of the sink painfully tightly.

"What if it did happen?" he asked in a choked whisper. "What if my parents got killed while we're all at school? There're plenty of people who want my dad's blood. From the last war and his job…. He's come really close at work before. And what if someone broke in like what happened to my grandparents and murdered my parents?"

Albus's voice had grown progressively higher and Scorpius was startled to see tears leaking out of his eyes as he leaned over the sink, an arm wrapped around his middle and shaking even harder than before as, unbidden into his mind came the image of his parents' dead bodies sprawled on their living room floor.

Scorpius was lost for words. He'd never dreamed how terrified Albus was of this.

"Al? Are you okay?" came Rose's worried and impatient voice from outside the bathroom door and Scorpius knew she'd been hovering anxiously outside, waiting for them.

"Come on, mate," he said, putting an arm around Al's shoulders and steering him to the door. "It'll all be fine. Your mum and dad are just fine."

Rose was, in fact, hovering impatiently outside the door to the boys' bathroom. She was extremely frustrated by the burrier and was half-tempted to ignore the sign and the rules and just go in anyway. But before she could become impatient enough to barge through it, the door opened.

The moment she saw Albus, Rose drew him into a tight hug.

"Oh, Al…" she sighed, feeling him still shaking. She couldn't blame him one bit. It had been like getting slammed in the stomach to see her aunt and uncle – virtually her back-up parents – lying dead in her classroom.

She caught Scorpius's eye over Al's shoulder and he mouthed 'he's afraid it'll happen'.

"It won't happen!" she told Albus forcefully, letting go of him so she could look right into his bright green eyes. "It won't happen, Al. Do you hear me?"

"It could," Albus said back, voice quaking so much it hardly sounded like his own.

"But it won't!" Rose insisted, stamping her foot. "You're dad won the last two bloody wars, didn't he? He beat Voldemort for Merlin's sake! And your mum's one of the best duelers I know. Mum even says so. And besides that, my mum and dad wouldn't _let _anything happen to them. There's a reason they survived the last war."

She looked so fiercely determined that Albus managed to swallow the lump in his throat.

"You're parents are good, Al, really good," Scorpius chimed in, seeing Albus beginning to calm down. "And it's not like it used to be. There's no war going on now."

"Yeah," Albus mumbled. "Yeah, you're right. It's stupid to be afraid of it."

"No, it's not!" Scorpius exclaimed in frustration. "It's not stupid to be afraid of it, but it's not going to happen. You can't _live_ in fear of it."

Albus nodded, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

"You're all going to be alright, Al," Rose told him more gently, putting an arm around his shoulders.

"Class is nearly over," Scorpius pointed out. "Why don't we hide out down in the kitchens for dinner? Get some treacle tart out of the house-elves? I'll tell Professor Lancing you're alright and meet you two down there."

"What do I do?" Albus asked his friends as they slowly began walking down the corridor. "What do I do about my bogart?"

Rose and Scropius shrugged.

"I don't know how to make that ridiculous."

"We can confuse it though," Rose suggested. "If Scorp and I are with you, we can confuse it into trying to turn into all of ours at once. Then you could finish it off good."

"That might work," Albus said slowly. "But what if I've got to do it alone?" he added with a touch of panic as the image swelled in front of him again.

"You won't," Rose said firmly.

"Yeah, what are friends for?" Scorpius added, flinging an arm once more around Al's shoulders.

A small smile crept slowly onto Albus's face as Rose hooked her arm through his like she'd done a million times when they were younger. Well, he sure felt a lot braver with the two of them at his side. Maybe he could take it after all.

**A/N: Well, I hope you liked it! I'd love to know what you thought of it! Please? :D **


	3. Lost

**A/N: Wow, this took me a long time to write! I'm sorry it's been so long. I've got that other series of one-shots I want to finish before I really focus on this one. Thanks for sticking with me, though, and I hope you like this! It's pretty long, but I don't see any way to cut it. Hopefully you don't mind the length. :D **

In Muggle Lundon they could look like a normal enough family out for the day; A mother carrying a squealing, red-haired baby, a father with a toddler in his arms, and between them the oldest boy, somewhere around ten, carrying his little brother piggy-back style. Just a normal family of six wondering around Lundon in the late-summer heat.

No one here recognized the thin lightening-bolt scar half concealed behind a fringe of messy black hair on the man's forehead. No one spotted the characteristic Weasley-red hair of his wife. No one dashed up to him to shake his hand or tried to take photos of the happy family or called out as if they'd known him all their lives. In fact, since Teddy had obliged to change his hair from his usual turquoise to a, perhaps no less vibrant but maybe less conspicuous, tomato-red to match Ginny and Lily's, no one glanced twice at them.

"Teddy, I'm _thirsty_!" James whined, pulling himself higher on Teddy's back to say it right in Teddy's ear.

"I know, Jamie," Teddy said doggedly. "You're dad'll get you something when we get to The Leaky Caldron."

"But Teddy, I'm thirsty _now_!"

"We'll be there soon."

"How soon?"

"I dunno, soon."

"But Teddy, I'm _hot_!"

"James wants to know when we'll be there," Teddy called to Harry and Ginny who were a step in front of them.

Harry glanced over at his son wriggling impatiently on Teddy's back and his godson's harried expression with a bemused smile. If Teddy only knew how much like James _he'd _been seven years ago…

"It's not too much farther," Harry assured him.

"How far's not too much farther?" Teddy asked suspiciously, all too aware of the trick having just used it on James.

"Not too much farther," Harry repeated, winking at him.

Teddy sighed and hiked James higher on his back.

It was extremely hot out and the city was ten times worse because there was absolutely no breeze, the sun beat down right on top of them, baking the cement as well as the people on it, and the air was thick with car fumes. Every once in a while, a shop door would be open and they would pass through a wonderful draft of cold air-conditioning, but it never last longer than a second.

Teddy was lagging a little behind. James was growing heavier by the minute, it seemed, and his hot breath on the back of Teddy's neck and the extra body heat made it seem like a thousand degrees warmer than it was. A blast of cool air-conditioning swept over him from a department store and Teddy paused to linger in the heavenly coolness.

Harry glanced behind him to make sure Teddy was still there as they reached a street corner. He was lagging several feet behind them, but Harry picked him out easily by the red hair.

"Oi, Teddy! Come on, mate!" he called.

Reluctantly, Teddy left the cold air to catch up. But just as he reached them, something in the display window of the shop caught his eye and he whipped his head around to look. It was a bright orange carnival hat, dotted with twinkling, colored lights and complete with thick purple stripes and a lime-green feather. It reminded Teddy of the ludicrous headless hats George and Angelina sold in the joke shop, except he doubted this one would disappear. He'd love to show up at the burrow wearing that! Imagine what his grandmother would say. And Vic would laugh herself stupid at it. It was brilliant!

He turned to point it out to Harry and Ginny, but they weren't right in front of him like they'd been a minute ago. He craned his neck, trying to see through the swarm of people bustling around him, squinting for the tell-tale flash of red that was Ginny's hair. But it was nowhere to be found. A bus rumbled across the street in front as a group of gigging teenagers ran across the street beside him. Traffic lights blinked and cars roared and people jostled him as they rushed past, but neither Harry nor Ginny emerged out of the crowd to pull him along and scold him in that light way of theirs for dallying.

Swallowing the panic that sprang up like a reflex in his chest, Teddy rounded the corner and started at a jog along the next block. This was the way they'd been going, he thought. It must be the way Harry and Ginny went. They were just a little bit ahead of him and he would spot them in no time and feel like a stupid little kid for panicking because they weren't holding his hand.

But every step brought no familiar faces into view, and soon Teddy had reached the end of another block. He stopped and spun in a circle in the middle of the pavement, desperate to catch a glimpse of Harry or Ginny or Albie or little Lily. James giggled happily as he spun, unaware that his parents were missing.

Teddy spotted a green t-shirt like the one Harry had been wearing up ahead on the next block and the moment the queue waiting to cross started to move, Teddy raced across the street, James bouncing on his back. But the green shirt had vanished into the crowd.

Teddy kept going, trying to pick out a familiar building or street name. There was an underground station near the Leaky Caldron, wasn't there? That shop was on Charringcross road, wasn't it? But Teddy had only come to Muggle London a handful of times with Harry and Ginny. He had never paid attention to the roads or the buildings. Diagon Alley he knew like the back of his hand, but the rest of London was a confusing maze of soaring buildings and roaring roads that all blurred into one another, endlessly.

He stumbled to a halt on yet another corner, panting, his face streaming with sweat, and looked around. He had no more idea where he was than he had had at the last corner. The people, the buildings, the cars, they all looked the same, they all swam around him threatening to crush in on him and Jamie. A rushing in his ears blocked out all other noise and the panic he'd been fighting down for blocks now surged up in his chest like a flooding river. He was lost.

XXX

"Ready to go?" Neville asked, jumping to his feet the second Harry and Ginny re-entered the Leaky Caldron, George on their heels.

It had taken them less than half a block to notice Teddy and James were no longer lagging a few feet behind them. They'd searched up and down the streets, block after block, panic steadily filling them as every successive street corner turned up with no sign of the boys. After almost an hour of half sprinting up and down city blocks, raking the crowd for a bobbing red head or a flash of James's flaming orange Chudley Cannons T-shirt, Albus and Lily were both squawking and Harry and Ginny were getting desperate.

"We aren't going to find them like this," Harry had said when they met back at the corner Teddy and James had vanished at. Lily was screaming, kicking her little bare feet and wriggling in Ginny's arms and Albus was red from heat and soaked with sweat, draped limply on his father's shoulder. "Let's drop the kids off with Hannah or at the shop, see if Neville or George or Angelina can help us."

And that was what they did.

"Angelina's got Al and Lily," Ginny told Neville and Hannah now. "Let's get going."

"Where'd you lose 'em?" George asked as the four of them hurried out of the pub and onto the crowded street.

"It had to have been down by that crazy shop you get all your wild clothes and things to make products," Harry said. "I waited for Teddy to catch up with us before we crossed the street, but on the next block he was gone. He might have… got distracted by something and lost sight of us and gone the wrong way…"

"Alright, we'll all go in a different direction from there," George said calmly, striding forward at a brisk pace, sweeping the pavement with his eyes.

As they half-sprinted towards the corner, Ginny slipped her hand in Harry's and squeezed his fingers. He knew what she was thinking because it was what he was thinking, what they were all probably thinking: What if Teddy hadn't just lost sight of them and gotten lost in the maze of London? He was the son of a werewolf, Harry Potter's godson, and it was Harry Potter's three-year-old son on his back. No one would say it, no one would give in to the fear, but old memories of the war were hard to stave off when something like this happened.

Harry squeezed her fingers back as they reached the corner and, without need of communication, all set off in different directions.

XXX

"Teh-deeee!" James whined, slipping around on Teddy's back as he half-jogged down yet another street, trying vainly to retrace his steps and find the corner with the orange hat.

"What?" he asked distractedly, trying to count blocks and directions in his head. Had it been two blocks or three since he'd turned left? Or would it be right now?

"Where's Mummy and Daddy?"

"Around here somewhere," Teddy told him in a falsely cheerful voice.

"I want to walk," James demanded, wriggling around so much that Teddy was in danger of dropping him.

"You'll get tired," Teddy told him.

"No I won't! I want to walk, Teddy!"

"Fine," Teddy snapped, too tired and hot to fight against James's struggling.

He knelt down so James could slide off his back, then grabbed the little boy's hand in a tight grip and began dragging him along, turning his head this way and that, trying to get a glimpse of something familiar.

They just had to get back to where they'd gotten lost. Harry and Ginny were surely looking for them by now. They just had to get back to where they'd be looking.

But he had no idea if he was even going in the right direction. He could be getting them more lost with every step. One wrong turn, one street to far and they could end up anywhere. Teddy had been lost one other time before: in the woods behind the burrow. He'd been six then, but it wasn't all that different from now. Now it was buildings and people in every direction he went, pressing in on him, towering over him. And now he had Jamie stumbling and tripping behind him, hot and tired and thirsty and on the verge of being scared if Teddy let his mask slip just a little.

Teddy had only been pulling James along for less than two blocks when he felt the little, sweat-slippery hand slid out of his own. Teddy whirled around, panicked, terrified that the crowd would swallow up James, too, and they'd both be alone. But James stood only a foot or two behind him, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

"C'mon Jamie," Teddy said impatiently, reaching for his hand again. "We've got to keep going."

"No!" James snapped, stepping backwards, away from Teddy's hand. "I don't wanna!"

"James, we _have _to," Teddy said a little desperately. Harry and Ginny would never find them if they were too far away from that corner. London was huge and they were tiny little specks.

"I'm _tired _Teddy," James complained.

"I told you you would be," Teddy reminded him impatiently. "That's why I was carrying you."

"I'm _hot_, Teddy," James added in a whine.

"I know, but we have to keep going. Look, I'll carry you again, alright?"

"No!" James repeated and he plopped down in the middle of the pavement and crossed his arms over his chest, glowering stubbornly up at Teddy and looking remarkably like his mother with his jaw set like that. " 'm not going anywhere."

"Jamie, please, we can't just sit in the middle of the street –"

"Where're Mummy and Daddy?" James asked again.

"That's where we're going," Teddy tried to explain. "We're going to find your mummy and daddy."

"But where _are _they?"

"Look, Jamie, I don't know –"

"I want Mummy and Daddy!" James wailed.

Passers-by were starting to stare. Teddy gave a woman who was giving him disapproving looks a smile and knelt down in front of James.

"We're gonna find your mum and dad, I promise, but we just have to keep moving, okay? So you've got to get up," Teddy coaxed.

"I don't wanna run anymore, Teddy!" James sniffled, somehow managing to look stubborn through the crocodile tears dripping down his cheeks.

Teddy sat back on his heels and let out a gusty breath. Maybe James was right. Maybe they should just stay put and hope someone found them. But the city was so big that Teddy couldn't imagine how anyone was going to find them. He didn't know how far they'd gotten from the Leaky Caldron.

Either way, James was not moving unless Teddy hauled him kicking and screaming the whole way.

"Alright, Jamie, we won't run anymore," he said tiredly. "C'mon, let's get out of the way so people don't trip over us."

He hauled James up by the collar of his shirt and pulled him over to a bench that was mercifully shaded by a shop awning.

The sun was sinking low in the sky now, but the heat still hung like a heavy fog over everything. A shop door a few feet away tantalized them with an escape from the heat, but Teddy didn't dare leave the street in case Harry or Ginny came by. Instead, he distracted James by playing I-spy or counting the red cars shooting past on the street before them. But every second seemed to drag out, time slowing to a crawl as the tide of pedestrians yielded no Harry or Ginny or anyone else looking for them.

Questions and doubts swarmed like hornets in his head, jabbing and buzzing. What if no one could find them? What would happen when darkness settled completely around them? What if someone like those Death Eaters turned up while they were all alone?

Teddy shivered at that thought and cast a wary glance around. But no mass of hooded figures was bearing down on them, so he refocused on keeping James busy, all the while keeping an eye on the people around them.

As dusk began to creep over them and streetlights began to pop on in anticipation of the night, the panic he'd been managing to push down billowed around Teddy and he struggled to push it away.

"Teddy, I wanna go home," James whimpered beside him. "I wanna go home! I wanna go home!"

"Me too," Teddy all but whimpered back, whipping his head back and forth, praying to see a familiar face.

"I'm thirsty," James rasped. He was draped limply over the side of the bench, red-faced and dripping with sweat. "I'm so thirsty, Teddy."

Teddy looked down at him and felt a wave of guilt. It was his fault they were in this mess. If he'd just paid attention, James would be gulping down pumpkin juice in the Leaky Caldron right now. He dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out some change, the last of the Muggle money Harry and Ginny had given him for the day. In the window of the shop across the street he could see a vending machine with rows of cold drinks. He pulled James upright.

"I've got some money left. Let's go get something to drink."

James drooped dully against Teddy's side. Teddy pulled him upright again and stood up, gripping James's wrist.

"C'mon, I thought you were thirsty?"

James's only answer was to flop sideways, laying down on the bench.

"James, come on. If you want something to drink, you've got to move."

"No," James mumbled, and then, apparently liking the sound of the word, began to chant it louder and louder until he was practically wailing it. And no matter how much Teddy pulled and heaved, James refused to move on his own.

Finally he sagged in defeat. He couldn't drag James across four lanes of traffic and Teddy was 0 and 12 to tired, cranky three-year-olds when it came to battles of wills.

"Fine," he exclaimed, losing patience. "I'll go get something for you. But you don't move a muscle, got it?" he yanked James up and looked sternly into his eyes. "If I go get you something from across the street, you don't move from this bench until I get back, hear?"

James nodded.

"What are you going to do while I'm across the street?" Teddy asked.

James froze, demonstrating his instructions by pretending to be made of stone.

"Exactly. Don't talk to anyone, don't go look at anything. Just stay sitting right here, and if anyone tries to make you leave, you start screaming, loud as you can, got it?"

James nodded again and then went back to his game of utter limpness.

"Good. I'll only be gone a minute, no moving."

Teddy backed to the corner of the street, keeping his eyes on James. When the traffic lights flashed that he could cross, Teddy turned and sprinted to the other side of the street and down to the shop with the vending machine. He squinted back across the street at the lump that was James to satisfy himself that James was still following orders and then pushed his way into the shop.

He quickly fed his money into the machine and retrieved the two cold plastic bottles, wet from condensation, and hurried out.

Darkness was sweeping in fast, casting a dusty glow on everything. The bench was in too much shadow now for Teddy to make it out after the bright florescent lights of the shop. Clutching the two bottles, he waited impatiently for the traffic signals to change so that he could get back to James. It made him nervous, not being able to see the little twerp.

A green light flashed on the stoplight and Teddy dashed across the street and over to the bench. But two feet away, he stopped cold. A lead weight seemed to have plowed into his stomach. The bench was empty.

"James?" Teddy spun on the spot and began running up the block, hoping every step would bring James's little silhouette into view. "James? James! JAMES!"

But the pavement was devoid of messy-haired three-year-olds. Teddy ran around the block, checking behind kiosks and looking into store windows, stopping passers-by to ask if they'd seen him. But no one had.

Finally Teddy stopped running, stopped shouting. He staggered to a halt in front of the bench he'd left James on and sank down to the cement, feeling like the world was spinning out of control again. Terrifying images of James cowering in an ally somewhere, of him running out into traffic or being carried off by some dark, hooded stranger flashed in front of Teddy's eyes and he struggled to pull in air.

"It was only five minutes," he mumbled faintly to himself. "It was only five minutes…"

This was _all _his fault. How could he possibly have been stupid enough to leave a little boy all alone for even five minutes? How could he have gotten them lost in the first place? Now he and James were both alone in London as darkness fell.

Teddy didn't know what to do. He couldn't find James in the dark. He couldn't find anyone in the dark. His throat closed and he pressed his face into his knees, shaking hard.

"Excuse me? Er, young man?"

Teddy started at the voice and snapped his head up to see a teenage girl standing over him.

"I – er, think we have something of yours," she said, nodding to the shop they had been sitting in front of.

Teddy stared up at her uncomprehendingly, blinking tears out of his eyes.

The girl licked her lips and tried again. "Little boy, glasses, messy black hair, bright orange shirt, whistles through his front teeth a little when he talks. Isn't he with you?"

"James?" Teddy said breathlessly, lurching unsteadily to his feet. "He's – you've got him? Is he okay?"

"He's fine," the girl assured him. "He's in the shop, come on."

Teddy followed her towards the door that had been tempting him with air-conditioning all afternoon, swiping his palms over his wet cheeks. The girl must be a clerk there, he realized, seeing the light glance off her nametag as she pushed the door open.

The cold air hit him like a rush of water, sweeping over his sweat-soaked skin, almost feeling too cold. And then Teddy spotted him, bright orange shirt blazing like a neon sign, sandaled feet swinging three feet above the floor as he sat atop the counter, sucking contentedly on a piece of licorice.

"Teddy!" James shrieked the moment he saw Teddy, waving his sticky hands madly above his head and nearly toppling off the counter.

"Jamie!" Teddy moaned, dropping the drinks he'd forgotten he was even still holding and hurrying to the counter to heave James down into his arms, sticky and all.

"I's okay, Teddy," James said brightly as Teddy sagged to the floor, squeezing James tightly to his chest, determined to never let go of him. "I'll share," James offered Teddy the slobbery, chewed up end of his licorice.

Teddy smiled weakly at him.

"No thanks, mate. You can have it all. James – I thought I told you to stay put?" Teddy added, not really able to sound angry through the relief still saturating his voice. "Didn't I tell you not to move until I got back?"

"That's kind of our fault," the woman behind the counter said, leaning over so she could look at them. "We'd been sort of keeping an eye on you and then we noticed this little guy was all alone and so we brought him in here. Didn't mean to freak you out, but I didn't like to leave him out there all by himself."

"I just went across the street," Teddy tried to explain, flushing. "He was thirsty and he wouldn't cooperate, so I just ran across the street quick to get us something to drink…. But didn't I tell you not to go with anybody, James?"

"They're nice," James defended, sticking out his lip.

"Yes, but they might not have been."

"They gave me sweets," James protested, waving his licorice in front of Teddy's face.

Teddy sighed and squeezed James tight again, resting his forehead on the little boy's shoulder.

"Are you two alright?" the woman behind the counter asked. "You've been sitting out front all afternoon… where're your parents?"

Teddy didn't answer at once, wondering how or how much to explain.

"We were shopping with my godfather, but we got lost," he said at last, ducking his head embarrassedly.

"Can we call someone for you? Let them know where you are?"

"No…" Teddy said miserably, wishing it was that easy. "They haven't got a phelly – er – a telephone."

The women exchanged looks. "Do you live here in London? Could we walk you home, maybe?"

Teddy shook his head. "We – we were going somewhere on Charringcross road, that's all I know."

"What're we supposed to do with them?" the girl who had brought Teddy in asked, biting her lip.

"I don't know," the older one told her. "Bring them to the police?"

"Police?" Teddy asked nervously.

"They're not criminals," the girl said.

"Well, we can't just turn them into a humane society, can we?" the woman hissed to the girl. Then, turning back to Teddy, she said reassuringly, "Don't worry, honey, you're not in trouble. We'll just take you down to the station. I'm sure your dad'll come looking for you there eventually, if nothing else. They'll be able to get you back home in no time."

"I don't –" Teddy began wildly. He didn't know much about the muggle police, but he didn't want to be hauled into their station. "Wait!" he cried suddenly, pulling himself up and keeping a firm grip on James's elbow. "My aunt Hermione has a phone! To talk to her parents on! I could call her!"

"Alright, certainly," the woman said, looking relieved.

She gestured to the phone beside her and Teddy hurried around the counter, dragging James with him.

He picked up the receiver and hesitated before resting it gingerly to his ear like he'd seen Hermione do, jumping a little at the buzzing sound that issued from it. He squinted down at the number pad, fingers hovering above the buttons. What was her number? Teddy screwed up his face in an effort to remember. Hermione had explained all about phones when she'd gotten hers, Teddy remembered. He'd asked a million questions, fascinated by the glowing, beeping thing voices could come out of. He just had to press the right combination of numbers and it would connect him through wires and signals to her phone and he could talk to her. What were they?

Carefully, as if expecting something to explode if he hit the wrong thing, Teddy pressed the numbers he thought lead to Hermione's phone. Then he took a breath and pressed the receiver hard against his ear, listening to the long buzzing notes that he remembered meant the phone he was trying to call was ringing. His heart was pounding in his chest and he gripped James's arm so tightly that the little boy squirmed in discomfort beside him. This was his only shot. If this didn't work, he didn't know how he would ever find Harry and Ginny. Those women would take him and Jamie to the police and then he had no idea what would happen to them. This had to work, it had to –

"Hello?"

"Hermione?" Teddy asked, his voice coming out in a squeak. He thought it sounded like it could be Hermione, but her voice sounded funny through all those wires and waves.

"Teddy? Is that you?"

"Hermione!" Teddy cried with a wave of relief almost as powerful as the one that had hit him when he'd spotted James just a few minutes ago.

"Teddy, sweaty, where on earth are you calling from? Are you alright?" Hermione asked, worry flooding her tone.

"I don't know where we are," Teddy told her, suddenly sniffling back tears again. "I lost Harry and Ginny and I couldn't find them and now it's dark and I don't know where we are and James is with me."

"Sh, calm down, it's alright," Hermione soothed over the phone. "You're in London, aren't you? Can you see street signs or shop names?"

"We're in a shop," Teddy told her, looking around for the first time at the store itself. "It sells hats and bags and things like that."

"The shop's called Brindle's," the woman offered.

"It's called Brindle's," Teddy told Hermione.

"I can give her directions, if you'd like," the woman said, holding out a hand for the phone.

"I don't know where it's at, but the lady who works here says she can tell you."

Teddy handed over the phone, a little reluctant to give up the only lifeline he'd been able to find.

"Her-mah-nee?" James asked, pointing to the phone Teddy had just handed over.

Teddy nodded, putting a finger to his lips to keep James quiet so he could listen. It didn't do much good though; the woman was speaking in street names and landmarks Teddy had no hope of recognizing. Finally, the phone was handed back to him.

"Hermione? Are you still there?"

"Yes, I'm right here, Teddy," Hermione told him calmingly. "And better yet, I know right where you are. I'm going to send a message to Harry right now so he can come and get you. They're all probably frantic. How long has it been since you lost them?"

"Hours!" Teddy said desperately.

"Hours? Forget frantic, they're probably going insane. Teddy, are you two alright?"

"Yeah, we're okay," Teddy said, even though he was far from okay.

"Listen, sweetie, I've got to hang up to send your dad a patronous. Magic interferes with the electronic frequencies. Will you be alright?"

"Yeah, just, hurry? Please?."

"It won't even be a minute, I promise. If you have any trouble, you can call me right back, okay?"

"Right, okay. Thanks."

"You're more than welcome. I'm glad you called me. I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Yeah, see you."

Teddy waited until he heard the click to put down the phone, feeling as if he'd let go of his lifeline. But Harry would be here soon. It would all be okay in a minute.

But it seemed to take much longer than a minute to Teddy. He and James waited beside the door, peering out at the dark street through the glass. Teddy's heart was still pounding. What if the directions got mixed up and Harry ended up in the wrong place? What if the patronous didn't work? Teddy didn't know how they worked. What if something went wrong and he never go the message?

Stop panicking, he tried to tell himself. Hermione'll make sure it works. And you can always call her back. Stop panicking…

A crack made Teddy and the two women jump, and James hid behind Teddy's legs. But a second later, Teddy's heart leapt as he saw a dark figure dashing up the street towards the doors.

Harry burst into the shop, glasses awry and wild eyed.

"Daddy!" James screamed, peeking out from behind Teddy's legs.

Harry's eyes snapped to the two of them and he seemed to melt with relief, and his knees hit the floor with a thud. James flew at him and launched himself into his father's arms with enough force to almost send them toppling. Harry buried his face in his son's mop of hair, clutching him so tightly he might have been in danger of cracking a rib. He didn't even seem to notice the sticky licorice prints James was leaving all over his shirt.

Teddy hung back, looking at his shoes. He wondered if Harry was mad that Teddy had gotten his son lost, or if he'd wait until later to be mad. He felt his throat going tight again.

But then Harry had reached out and gathered him into a rib-cracking hug, too, pressing his face into Teddy's shoulder.

"Thank Merlin," he muttered. "God, are you two alright?" he asked in choked sort of voice, leaning back far enough to examine them, running a hand along Teddy's cheek, looking from one face to the other, eyes brimming with something Teddy couldn't recognize.

"We're fine," Teddy tried to say, but he found he couldn't force the words past the lump in his throat. Instead they came out as sort of squeak and all the fear and panic that had been building since that street corner with the orange hat seemed to topple in on Teddy, slamming down like waves. To his horror, hot tears began to stream in earnest down his cheeks.

"Sh, hey Teddy-bear, it's okay," Harry said soothingly, squeezing Teddy's shoulder. He stood up, James in one arm and the other wrapped around Teddy's shoulders. "It's okay. You're alright," he kept murmuring, rubbing Teddy's back. "Let's go home, yeah?"

Teddy pressed his wet cheek into Harry's side, listening as he thanked the women in the shop for everything.

Harry steered Teddy out of the shop, keeping his arm tight around Teddy's shoulders, as if he didn't want to let Teddy go any more than Teddy had wanted to let James go when he'd found him.

"How on earth did you get this far away from the Leaky Cauldron?" Harry asked with a shaky laugh.

Teddy sniffled. "Dunno… I'm sorry," he added in a low voice.

"What for?" Harry asked.

"It was all my fault," Teddy said between waves of tears. "I wasn't paying attention – and I got us lost – and – and I lost James! I'm s-sorry," he hiccoughed, sniffling some more.

"Hey, easy," Harry murmured, coming to a halt to look down at his tear-soaked godson. "None of that was your fault, Ted. It was an accident, just an accident. You did the best you could. You took care of James and found a way to let us know where you were. You did good, kid."

Teddy ran a hand under his streaming nose and blinked up at Harry. "You – you're not mad?"

"How could I be mad? We were scared sick over you all afternoon," Harry told him. "I can't tell you how glad I am to have you safe and sound."

He kissed the top of James's messy head and tightened his grip around Teddy's shoulders.

Teddy took a shuddering breath.

"Come on, let's go home."

James was already drowsing on his father's shoulder and Teddy nestled into Harry's side as they walked. It was okay now.

**A/N: Whew, that took forever to write. Like I said, thanks for sticking with me and I hope it was worth the wait! :D Please leave a review and tell me what you think! **


	4. Six Years Too Late

**A/N: Hello again. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story! You guys are great! :D So here's another chapter! I hope you like it. This story will be all over the place as far as characters and timeframes (post DH) go. This chapter ended up going an interesting way… I really do hope you all still like it!**

Emerald flames erupted in the grate and a second later expelled two sooty figures onto the hearth rug. A little boy with bright green hair wriggled in his grandmother's arms, impatient to be let loose.

Andromeda waited for Harry and Ginny's kitchen to stop spinning around her before brushing the ash out of Teddy's hair and dropping him lightly to the floor. He took off at top-speed the moment his feet touched tile, squealing and screeching and pretending to be a monkey as he half-ran, half-tumbled across the room.

"Hey, Monkey-man," came an amused voice as Harry appeared in the doorway and Teddy bounced off his knees and hit the floor.

Teddy squealed with laughter as Harry swept him off the ground and held him upside-down, tickling his exposed belly. Andromeda watched them with a fait smile, leaning against the table until finally Harry swung Teddy upright and shifted him in his arms so that he could look at her. The amusement gave way to solemnity as their eyes met.

"Do… do you want us to walk with you?" Harry asked only slightly awkwardly, the teenage look that had not quite left him yet coming through. "I could take him for ice cream or something while we waited," he added, jerking his head towards Teddy.

At the words 'ice cream' Teddy began to squeal again, whipping his head back and forth so that his lime-green hair spun out and chanting excitedly "Ice cream, ice cream!", completely immune to the serious mood.

"No… thank you," Andromeda said quietly, casting her eyes down. "I think I have to go alone. Could you tell me where it is?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah… It's right next to my parents. Fifth row from the back, to the left of theirs."

Andromeda nodded once. "Thank you." And then she turned and slipped out the back door, disappearing with a swish of robes on the back porch.

Harry watched her go with a somber expression, Teddy sagging dizzily against his shoulder, still chanting. Harry looked down at him and his somberness lifted somewhat.

"Oh, alright," he said in bemusement at Teddy's hopeful look. "Just don't tell your Gran."

And he crossed to the ice box with Teddy wiggling delightedly in his arms.

XXX

Andromeda pushed the old kissing gate open. She had been in plenty of cemeteries, especially in the last few years, but never had one evoked such nervousness in her. It was a battle. One she had been fighting for six years. Ever since her daughter had come flying into their house with the news that the whole world had been wrong. That Andromeda had been wrong. For fourteen years. She should have gone. She should have gone right then. But she could not. Not after those fourteen years.

She was too late. Far, far too late. But he deserved something rather than nothing at all. And yet she still battled that nervousness, that shame that had dragged her back each time she'd tried before, which was the reason she had not come the week before when all the rest had.

No one would have known from observing her what chaos reigned in her head as she walked calmly between the headstones. A carefully crafted mask of blank calmness spread across her face, her hands clasped placidly before her. The only hint of emotion was a shadow of somberness in her eyes as they flicked from headstone to headstone, counting, until finally they found the marble one shining in the sunlight, and beside it a stone cross.

With even, measured steps, Andromeda moved towards the cross, her eyes never leaving it. Then she reached it and stared down at the letters engraved across it:

_In memory of Sirius Black_

_1959-1996_

_A Hero_

_A hero_… Those last two words were what shattered the façade, brought her crashing to her knees, gasping as if something had hit her. _A hero_…

And the memories that she had pushed back, first in pain and then in shame came swelling back, roaring around her, blocking out the sunny morning, the warm June breeze, the stone cross before her…

A little boy darted out into the hallway, dark hair falling in his eyes and a wicked grin across his face. Shrieks followed him from the drawing room as he pelted for the staircase, laughing gleefully.

"Sirius!"

A girl, several years older, swept into the hallway, white-blonde hair flying and pale face stormy. Ink splattered the front of her silken robes and dripped from her hands.

"Get back here, you nasty little monkey!" her shrill voice echoed up and down the staircases at the end of the hall.

A second little boy, smaller than Sirius, but with the same dark hair darted out from behind her, ink covering his own fine clothing, and flew up the hall. He caught Sirius around the middle halfway up the stairs and the two struggled with each other as the girl stalked up towards them. Sirius succeeding in kicking his little brother off, but the girl had already reached them and she seized Sirius by the hair as he attempted to scramble away.

"Ow! Get off, Cissy!" he complained, pulling at her fingers.

"Never! You wait until I tell your mother what you did, you little cretin!"

She began to drag him back down the stairs by the hair, his yells reverberating off the walls. Another girl appeared at the top of the stairs, looking curious and then alarmed.

"Narcissa, let him go!" she ordered, hurrying down to them and prying her younger sister's fingers apart.

"Andromeda, look at what he did!" Narcissa shrieked indignantly, shaking her stained hands so that a few drops of ink splattered onto Andromeda's cheeks. "I'm telling Aunt Walburga! She'll flail you good this time," she added nastily to Sirius, who had fled up to the top of the stairs and now glowered down at her, an arm wound around the banister.

Andromeda surveyed her little sister dispassionately.

"Leave Mother and Auntie be, Cissy," she told her. "They're busy."

Narcissa puffed up like an angry peacock, but Andromeda cut her off before she could start squawking again.

"I'll deal with him," she said, turning on her heal and marching up to Sirius. "Mother said I was in charge. Come along, Sirius."

She grabbed his ear as she passed him and yanked him away, glowering and ignoring his protests until they had reached the bedroom she and her sister were staying in. Andromeda shut the door with a sharp snap and let go of her cousin.

Sirius backed away from her, rubbing his ear and scowling at her reproachfully.

"What was that for?"

"What was that for? I just saved your neck, Sirius," Andromeda hissed, pushing Sirius down onto one of the beds and sitting opposite him. "Haven't I told you to just leave them be and ignore it?"

"She deserved it," Sirius said petulantly, scuffing the floor with the toe of his shoe.

"Maybe, but it will only end with you in trouble. You know that."

Sirius just scowled at the floor. Andromeda sighed.

"Why did you have to set her off?" she asked, sounding a little pleading.

"You heard the way she was going on last night!" Sirius said furiously. "About how proud they all are about Bellatrix's pure-blood campaigning and all our creepy relatives and all those snooty things about you being a disappointment! She's a stuck-up priss, and Regulus is just like her!"

"I know, Sirius, but you can't win with them," Andromeda told him tiredly. "The best you can do is ignore them, even when they do deserve ink bombs and worse."

"Easy for you to say," Sirius muttered mutinously. "You'll be on your own soon and you won't have to put up with them anymore."

"Exactly," Andromeda said sharply, fixing Sirius with a severe look. "I won't be around all the time to pull you out of trouble. You've got to learn to ignore it. Just do as you're told and keep your head down and get out as soon as you can."

Sirius's angry, rebellious expression did not change.

"You'll be at Hogwarts next year," Andromeda said, trying a different tact. "They can't get at you there. Your life is your own at school as long as you're smart about it."

Andromeda thought something close to hope sparked in her cousin's face at this, but he kept his truculent expression firmly in place.

Andromeda sighed again and leaned back on her elbows, giving the lecture up. Sirius would hear only what he wanted to hear. She just hoped that sheer stubbornness was enough to keep him from getting sucked into the vortex that was the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

"What exactly did you do, anyway?" she asked.

An evil grin suddenly broke out on Sirius's handsome face. "Stuck a dung bomb in Cissy's ink pot."

Andromeda was too well-controlled to let her disapproving expression slip, but her eyes danced with mirth and that was enough for Sirius. He crowed delightedly.

Andromeda rolled her eyes and reached out a hand to ruffle his hair because she knew he hated that. "You're okay, kid."

The memory spun away, faded to be replaced by another, from nearly seven years later.

A snarling roar ripped through the warm summer night, shattering the sleepy hush that had hung over the little house. A soapy dish slipped from Andromeda's hands and smashed in the sink, spattering her with hot dish water.

"Andy? What was that?"

Her husband clattered into the kitchen behind her, wand drawn, but Andromeda was too busy gaping out the kitchen window to answer him. She lunged for the back door, fumbling with the latch with her wet fingers, and flung the door open just as a young man leapt off of the enormous motorbike that had just flattened her begonias.

"Who on earth…?" Ted said faintly from beside her, gazing open-mouthed at the teenager.

"Hey, Andy," the boy said casually, giving her a broad, mischievous grin as he leaned against his bike. "Thought I'd drop in."

"Sirius?" Andromeda's voice seemed far away, even to her own ears as she stepped towards the boy, unable to reconcile this tall, wild dragon-hide-clad young man with the cheeky menace of a little boy she had last seen him as.

"Yeah, it's me," he told her, laughing at her expression.

Andromeda watched him introduce himself to Ted, shake his hand, accept the invitation into their kitchen and plop down easily into a chair at the table, as though he did it every day. There were a lot of things she wanted to ask him, a lot of things she wanted to tell him, the first member of her family she had seen since she'd eloped with Ted, but she had grown up a Black, so she sat down calmly opposite him and eyed him calculatingly. Then she smiled.

"So you got a bike," was what she said instead. "Hoping to give your mother a stroke?"

"Well, yeah, in general," Sirius answered with that wicked grin she remembered so well. "But not with the bike. That was just 'cause I could." He let the front legs of his chair drop back to the floor with a snap as he leaned forward, a wild, almost frenzied glee on his face. "I got out."

"You got out?" Andromeda repeated, eyes widening.

"I got out of our mad, twisted, hell-born family, Andy! Just like you! My mother can scream all the insults she likes and my dad can pretend I never existed and Regulus can go on being their damned perfect little son, but they can't do a thing to me 'cause I'm out."

If he'd been the little boy she remembered, Andromeda might have swung him around and kissed him, but she had to settle for beaming with pride instead.

"I hoped you would," she told him as Ted set three mugs of coffee on the table and sat down beside her. "How'd you manage it?"

"I just took off," Sirius said with great satisfaction. "Christmas about a year and a half ago it just got too much and I couldn't take their crap anymore. We had a huge fight and I left and haven't spoken to a damn one of them since! But old Uncle Alfard kicked the bucket a few months back, and he left me some gold. Got my own place now, and my bike, so I thought I'd come look you up now that no one's stopping me."

"Well, I'm glad," Andromeda told him, sipping her coffee. "I heard you've been pushing their sanity for years, now. Did you really get sorted into Gryffindor?"

Sirius grinned wickedly again. "First Black not in Slytherin for six generations. I'm pretty proud of it, actually."

Andromeda couldn't help it. She had tried to tell herself for six years that she really did not care what became of her family. And she didn't, for the most part. But she was curious and she had to ask.

And Sirius answered her questions, though she could tell he didn't want to, and relayed what few stories he had paid attention to before running away. Andromeda did not let the disappointment show on her face when she heard that Narcissa was engaged to the Malfoy heir. She didn't give any sign of regret when Sirius told her, a bitter edge to his voice, that Regulus had fallen in quite happily with the creepy, pure-blood-manic crowd in Slytherin. But when Sirius informed her of Bellatrix's success among the Death Eaters, Andromeda could not suppress the revulsion that rose inside her.

At this point Sirius leaned forward, looking more serious than he had since he'd arrived.

"Are you going to fight?" he asked, eyes locked on Andromeda.

"You mean with Dumbledore's lot?" she asked, though she already knew.

Sirius nodded. Ted and Andromeda exchanged looks.

"Sirius, I don't like what Bella's doing and I don't like what Reg's getting into," Andromeda told him. "But I don't want to be in the middle of it. Too many people get hurt in the middle. I can't."

She glanced at the photos hanging on the wall behind Sirius's head and he followed her gaze.

"That's her, isn't it?" he asked, eyeing the little girl grinning toothily at him with curiosity. "Your little squirt?"

"Yes, that's our daughter, Nymphadora," Andromeda said, smiling proudly.

"What's up with her hair?" Sirius asked, but he turned back towards them before they could explain, serious once more. "Look, Andy. You're already in the middle of it. We're _all _in the middle of it."

"I'll take that as confirmation that you're already planning to run head-long into the fight?" Andromeda asked quietly.

"Hell yes," Sirius said at once, and Andromeda saw once again that rebellious anger in his eyes and knew she should have expected it all along. "And you should, too, if you give a damn about that kid of yours."

"Sirius," Andromeda said warningly, but Sirius was already talking over her.

"Haven't you been paying attention to the news? Haven't you seen what kind of things they've done? You can't honestly think that 'do as you're told and keep your head down and ignore it' will keep you safe with this?"

"Sirius," Ted said a little uncomfortably because he didn't know this firey, wild-looking boy who had come out of nowhere into his kitchen. "It's an admirable fight. It really is. And if we didn't have a family, if we weren't risking so much, we'd join. But as it is…"

"My mate, his dad got killed a couple months ago," Sirius said abruptly.

"We're very sorry to hear it," Andromeda murmured.

Sirius nodded, looking broodingly at his knuckles. "He was a pure-blood. Not like our family, though. A really decent bloke. You know why they killed him?"

Andromeda and Ted shook their heads, looking apprehensive. Sirius gave a harsh bark of laughter.

"Because he tried to stop them ambushing a couple of Muggle-borns leaving the Ministry. All he did was put up a shield charm and they killed him. Just like that. Four of them, in masks and cloaks. And they got away. He wasn't even with Dumbledore or anything."

Sirius sat forward, his eyes glittering oddly as he stared fixedly at the coffee pot in the middle of the table. Neither Andromeda nor Ted dared to say anything.

"James Potter's dad was the most decent man I've ever met. You know where I went when I ran away? I went to James's house. He'd been furious with me for weeks before. I'd pulled some shit and it was the worst fight we've ever had, but when I turned up, soaking wet at two in the morning he let me in. He gave me some dry stuff and let me crash on the sofa and cussed out my family pretty good with me and it didn't even matter that he'd been furious with me the day before because that's just the kind of people the Potters are.

"And you know what Mr. Potter said when he came downstairs and found me in his living room?" Sirius laughed again, but it sounded kind of strangled this time. "He asked who the tramp on his sofa was and James told him it was his new charge and he just nodded and said I should get used to eggs 'cause that's all he could cook."

There was a heavy silence. Andromeda watched the fury gather on her cousin's handsome face.

"He had a family," Sirius said at last, and his voice was low and full of force. "He had a kid and a wife and _he_ would have helped _you_ anyway."

"I'm grateful to him, then," Ted said earnestly.

Sirius swallowed and nodded.

"Not everyone can be a hero, Sirius," Andromeda told him quietly.

"Shouldn't stop you from trying," Sirius said back.

And Andromeda was back in the cemetery, kneeling beside a stone cross marked with the word 'hero', the last solid thing left of her cousin.

She did not cry. She had already mourned him, first when he had been taken to Azkaban, when she had believed that his father's death and his brother's disappearance had pulled him back in, had turned him into a betrayer and murderer, and then again when he had died, five years ago last week. Her throat ached and her eyes stung as guilt and sorrow washed over her, but she did not cry.

She should have faced this six years ago, when it might still have mattered. Andromeda had known, from the time he was very small, that Sirius Black was rash, wild, and hot-headed, and that one day, it would lead him into trouble that she could not pull him out of, that no one could. But he had gone as a hero, and that was how he would have wanted it.

**A/N: So? I've been kind of hung up on the Marauders lately (I'd like to start a one-shot series about them, too, but I'm waiting until I finish Teddy to do that) and I guess this was my way of getting around the whole post-DH thing to squeeze them in :D No, actually I wanted to examine Sirius and Andromeda's relationship. I've always been curious as how she felt about what happened to him. I don't think they were extremely close, but I do think there was a little something behind Sirius's comment that Andromeda was his favorite cousin. Anyway, Reviews would be lovely! I'm not very sure about this one… **


	5. Birthday

**A/N: Hello again! Thank you all very much for your kind reviews! This story will be all over the boar characterwise, so I hope you don't mind me jumping. I hope you enjoy this chapter. **

**Oh yeah, by the way, all of this? Don't own it. Just borrowing. **

Molly Weasley had always been able to tell when something was wrong with her children. She could feel it; like something out of place inside her, and it was impossible to ignore until she had done all she could to fix it. She could sense fevers like storms, hear broken hearts through locked doors, feel anger and tension like a heat wave, and see guilt hovering like an aura in secluded corners of the house. This instinct had kept her up many nights, walking the house until she found the light creeping under a bedroom door or heard a muffled groan, and it was what kept her awake that night at the end of January.

Insomnia was not a new thing to Mrs. Weasley. After seven babies growing up into seven teenagers and living through two wars and more death than she wished to hold onto, sleepless nights were nearly more common than restful ones. But there was something different about it that night. It wasn't the nightmares that plagued them all or the terrible worry for her family's safety or the grief that had been like a constant, unhealing wound after the final battle that kept her awake that night. It was that feeling that something was off.

She tossed and turned in her bed beside Arthur (who slept peacefully), watching dazedly as snowflakes drifted past the window and listening to the sleeping house creak around her until finally she couldn't take it anymore. Mrs. Weasley slipped out of bed, pulled her dressing gown gratefully around her against the cold outside her blankets, and padded out of her bedroom.

She traced her rout down the stairs without even thinking, so familiar was it to her. No light pooled on the dark landings and when she reached the kitchen, it was empty and dark, just like the sitting room. Unperturbed, Mrs. Weasley began back up the stairs, this time pushing open bedroom doors to peek inside, listening to every sound the house made.

She paused with a hand against Ginny's door before remembering that her daughter was at Hogwarts and Hermione had moved back in with her parents months ago, leaving that room empty.

Moving on up the stairs, Mrs. Weasley carefully pushed open the door to Percy's room and peered around it. Percy had moved back in after the battle and now lay tucked neatly into his blankets, fast asleep, exhausted from long days of work at the Ministry. A second bed had been added to Percy's room. George was huddled beneath his blankets, and Mrs. Weasley hoped that the recent efforts to restart the joke shop had tired her son out enough to allow him peaceful, dreamless nights again. He did not stir or make a sound as she watched from the doorway, counting the visible rising and falling of his back, and after a few silent moments, she closed the door again.

She paused to press a palm against closed door to the twins' old room across the hall, closing her eyes. It had rarely been opened since before they had left for Muriel's last spring. George had walked straight past it and into Percy's room when they had come home from Hogwarts in May and no one had question the sleeping arrangements. A part of her, as it always did when she paused outside this door, wanted to push open the time-capsule and crumple upon her son's old bed, to find something that had been his and never let it go. But tonight was not the night for that. There was somewhere else she needed to be, so she pulled her hand away from the door and moved again up the stairs.

The bathroom door stood ajar, leaving only one more room to check. When she reached the fourth floor landing where she had started, Mrs. Weasley saw that had she just turned the other direction and looked up the stairs first instead of down, she would have saved herself a trip through the house. But old routines were hard to break.

Dim wandlight glowed softly from the top of the stairs leading to the attic bedroom, and by it she could make out the hunched figure of a boy sitting against the wall, something spread across his knees. Mrs. Weasley stood, still and uncertain, on the landing, half hidden behind her open bedroom door, wondering if she ought to go up the stairs or leave him be. It was hard to know with this one what was best.

The sound of a soft, muffled sniffle made up her mind. Slowly, cautiously, she ascended the stairs. He must have known she was there, but he didn't look up, even as she settled herself on the floor beside him and waited, not saying a word. She wondered, as the silence stretched on, if she shouldn't have just left him alone, but it was too late now and she knew she would never have been able to sleep if she had.

Finally, not taking his bright green eyes off the photo album in his lap, he said softly, "It was her birthday today, did you know that?"

She looked down at the young woman in the picture he was gazing at. Her long, dark red hair was being blown back in the wind as she smiled at the camera, rolling emerald eyes indulgently at whoever was taking the picture.

"No, dear, I didn't know that," she whispered, suddenly understanding the odd expression that had played on his face that morning after he'd looked at the paper. The date had probably been the only thing he'd really seen.

Harry nodded, eyes still fixed on the picture. "I didn't either… until last Christmas…" he trailed off, sounding the slightest bit choked and cleared his throat. "She'd've been thirty-nine today…"

Mrs. Weasley had always known the Potters had been young, but it didn't hit her until then just how young. Lily couldn't have been much older than Fred had been when she'd died…

"I'm sorry we didn't do anything," she said softly.

Harry tried to smile. "It's okay. I didn't really know her anyway." He let out a quiet, pained sort of chuckle. "I could count on one hand the things I know about her. Can't really miss someone you can't remember."

But Mrs. Weasley could see that he could. She could see it etched on his face, try as he might to conceal it. It was more than the motherly hugs, the fussing over the state of his socks or if he was eating properly, the being able to sense when something was wrong that Harry missed. He missed _her _voice, _her _touch, _her _smile, _her _vibrancy. He missed the woman in that photo and being able to know her. And those were the things that Mrs. Weasley could never substitute for.

She could see him trying to convince himself of the words, that he couldn't really miss her. Or that he shouldn't.

"You don't have to know someone to love them," said Mrs. Weasley after a moment, watching him carefully. She settled herself more comfortably against the wall and looked down at the photo of Lily Potter rather than at her son as she went on. "I remember when I first found out I was pregnant with Bill – it happened with all of them really, but I remember it with Bill best because he was first – I knew from that second that I loved that tiny speck inside me, and I didn't know a thing about it."

"That was your kid though," Harry said quietly.

"And she was your mother," Mrs. Weasley said gently. "It doesn't take memories to miss people."

Harry traced the picture with his fingers, biting his bottom lip hard. It nearly broke her heart to watch him.

Mrs. Weasley hauled herself back to her feet and bent down to drop a kiss on the top of his head. Then she made her way creakily back down the stairs. Harry reached up to feel the place she'd kissed him. Suddenly he wished she'd stayed. He didn't want to be alone on the dark landing with the ghost of his mother. But he couldn't bring himself just yet to close the book on her.

It felt like looking at a stranger, and that was what killed him.

He wasn't sure how long it was before a creak on the landing below made him jump and look round. Mrs. Weasley was climbing the stairs again, holding something gin her hands. She reached Harry and lowered herself down beside him again.

Wordlessly, she offered him what she had been carrying. It was a cupcake. Small, and slightly misshapen perhaps, but Harry barely noticed anything except the red lily that had been painted, a bit clumsily, in frosting on top, a yellow birthday candle stuck in its center.

Mrs. Weasley raised her wand and lit the candle. By its dancing light she observed the boy who had become as good as a son to her. She could not give him his mother back any more than she could get her own son back. But she could pass on what Lily Potter couldn't.

Harry's voice was a hoarse whisper as he said, "Thanks, Mrs. Weasley."

"It's no trouble, dear," she assured him, brushing his cheek with her hand.

He settled back against the wall and raised the candle in front of his face.

"Happy birthday, Mum." And in a gust of breath, the flame flickered out.

Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Weasley crawled back into bed, eyes already heavy with sleep and content that all her children were sleeping soundly. Her husband stirred as she pulled the blankets back.

"Where've you been?" he asked sleepily.

"Just doing a mother's work," she whispered.

**A/N: What did you think? I am very tired right now as I finish this, so I hope the ending was satisfactory. It's rather short, isn't it? Then again, chapter three was rather long. I suppose it will be very different chapter to chapter. I have two (or three) more chapters to go with that other story I mentioned I'm trying to finish (Teddy), so I really ought to be focusing on that, but if there are particular characters you'd like to see a chapter on, I'd be eager to hear them. I'm not promising to do requests as I have a vague idea for several other chapters at the moment, but I love your opinions! And pleas, please, please tell me what you thought of this chapter! Thanks a ton! :D**


	6. Writing on the Wall

**A/N: As promised, this is the scene I talked about at the end of chapter seventeen of Chamber of Secrets (from the reading series this story is kind of connected to, for those that don't know). This is more connected to the reading series than any of the other chapters have been. I think you can read it without having read that fic, though. **

**Thanks to everyone who reviews! You guys rock! Most ever reviews for the last chapter BTW. Thanks! **

Lily Potter was not where she was supposed to be. The smell of roasted chicken and the sound of hundreds of conversations mingling together from the Great Hall attempted to coax her down the stairs, but she didn't seem to notice. A few minutes before, she'd been starving, nearly running along the corridors to catch up with her friends. Now she felt sick.

It had been the wailing that stopped her. Loud, echoey sobs issuing from a door that now stood a few feet from Lily. She had skidded to a halt and looked uncertainly at the door, wondering if she should see what the matter was, try to comfort whoever was so upset. As she was only a lowly first year, she wasn't sure if her comfort would really be appreciated, but Lily could not just walk away from someone who sounded this devastated.

It wasn't until she had been about to push open the door that Lily realized where exactly she was. It was a girls' bathroom. A girls' bathroom on the second floor with an out-of-order sign on the door. Unlike most of her classmates, Lily knew the story behind this bathroom, what had happened in it more than seventy-five years ago, and what was hidden behind the sink with a serpent carved on its tap.

The memory of that story was enough to make her insides twist a little and a sudden vision of her own mother standing outside this very door when she was exactly Lily's age flashed in her mind. It caused another twist in her gut when she realized that scene did not look so different from this very moment. Lily quickly backed away from the door, not stopping until her back was pressed against the opposite wall. She had forgotten all about the noisy wailing. She knew who it was now, and knew there was no consoling her.

Almost unwillingly, Lily's eyes moved from the door to the stretch of wall beside it, and for a moment she imagined seeing shining red letters and a stiff cat dangling from the torch bracket. Her breath caught and she blinked the image away, but she could not seem to take her eyes off that wall where she knew someone had daubed frightening messages in blood-red paint twenty-seven years before.

The stone seemed unremarkable now, blank and indistinguishable from any other stretch of stone in the castle. But was it? Lily squinted. Was she imagining the faint outline of letters in the flickering torch light? She took a few jerky steps forward, heart beginning to pound a little for no reason. There was definitely something there, she thought.

Lily remembered asking her cousin Rose, after they had first learned about the story behind this wall, if those words were still there. Rose had told her she had never noticed them, that it was possible the wall had even been destroyed during the Battle of Hogwarts and rebuilt. Lily had hoped that was the case, but as she moved closer, the indistinct lines were becoming more and more defined.

Lily stopped a foot away from the wall, finding it a little difficult to breathe normally. She could see them, now. They were so faded that no one would notice them if they weren't looking, didn't know the lines and smudges were actually part of words. But Lily knew, and she could read them. Two separate messages, written months apart; one when one of the worst years the School had seen began and one when it had ended.

_THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED_

_ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE_

And a little below it, the words that really made Lily's blood run cold:

HER SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER

Unbidden into her mind came the image of her mother, as old as she was now, lying, pale and motionless, on a grimy stone floor far beneath the school, a ghostly, dark-haired, handsome teenaged boy standing over her, cold smile on his lips as her life poured into him. Because he had been nice to her. Because he had listened to her fears and secrets. Because he had gotten her to trust an invisible stranger.

"Lily?"

Lily nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice. She whirled around so fast she nearly fell over. It was Neville – Professor Longbottom here at Hogwarts, though she could not quite get used to calling him that in her head. He stood at the top of the stairs a few feet away, looking at her in slight concern.

"Are you alright?" he asked, coming towards her.

Lily nodded, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at her shoes.

"Why aren't you at dinner?" Neville asked, frowning down at her. He had known Lily her entire life and he had rarely seen Harry and Ginny's daughter so quiet and jumpy. "Are you not feeling well? You look kind of peaky."

Lily shrugged and bit her lip. She looked back at the wall and Neville followed her gaze. He felt his stomach clench slightly as he realized where they were, what Lily had found.

"She wrote them, didn't she?" Lily murmured, her voice higher than usual. "My mother?"

Neville had not known the full story behind those words until halfway through his seventh year. It had sickened him to listen to Ginny explain in a dead sort of voice why that year had not yet become the worst in her school career.

"Yeah, I guess she did," he told Lily, mouth slightly dry.

Lily must know more about this story than he did, he realized. No wonder she looked so pale. He knew she and her brothers and cousins had stumbled upon the real story, written out in painstaking detail the year before.

Lily reached a hand out to trace the letters. She did not have to stretch up to touch them, despite being rather short, even for a first year. They had been written by a girl no bigger than her, after all.

"That was supposed to be her, wasn't it?" Lily whispered, her fingers gliding over the words 'her skeleton'.

She wondered if she might actually be sick as she thought how close it had come. Reading about these words and why they had been written had been bad enough to give her nightmares. Seeing them was far worse. It brought home the reality of all the things they had learned from those books the summer before last.

Neville didn't answer. She wondered if he was remembering the actual thing happening, the night that everyone had spent thinking her mother was dead.

"She was my age," Lily breathed, feeling the need to speak the words out loud, to affirm the fact that this had happened to her mother when she was no older, no more mature or able to handle it than Lily was at that very moment.

She wanted to leave, to turn and run from this spot and not see those words, proof that her nightmares had really happened. But she couldn't. For some reason she couldn't force herself to look away, to turn her back.

"Lily?" She felt Neville's warm hand on her back, pushing her gently away from the wall. "Come on, Lil. Why don't we have a cup of tea in my office?"

Lily was grateful to be lead away. That part of the hallway was like quicksand to her, sucking her in, trapping her, making it hard to breathe. It wasn't until Neville placed a steaming mug in front of her that Lily started to feel warm again. She sipped the piping hot drink, not caring much that it scalded her tongue.

They sat in silence, though not uncomfortably.

Lily liked Neville's office. It was messy and unorganized, with papers and quills and little potted plants strewn across the desk and the top of cabinets. Tall windows on one wall looked out at the greenhouses and the vegetable gardens. It reminded her a bit of the Burrow, the way things were stacked precariously and odd plants sat in corners. It relaxed her.

Her tea was half gone when Neville finally spoke. His voice was light and thoughtful as he examined one of the little flower pots on his desk for deadheads.

"This place has seen a lot. Full of memories it is."

Lily looked at him quizzically.

"Can't hardly walk down the halls without remembering something," he went on. "Worse now that you lot are here looking so much like your parents. Sometimes, if I'm far enough away, I could almost swear I'm back when I was a student."

Neville had a bemused smile on his face, and Lily had no idea where he was going with this.

"There are some scorch marks still on the fourth floor from your uncles, Fred and George. That was brilliant, that was… And that blue spot on the statue of Gregory the Smarmy? Nearly got your mum and me detention. I was trying to show her something my Mimbulous Mimbletonia could do and, er, didn't really know what I was doing. Thought we'd never get that stuff out of our hair. Don't know if we've ever laughed harder though,"

He chuckled even at the memory of Ginny trying to threaten to hex him between snorts of laughter as they sprinted away from Filch's outraged shrieks.

"And of course there's that old beach tree where your mum and dad used to kiss," he added, pretending to whisper and making a disgusted face at the last word.

Lily couldn't help but giggle into her mug of tea.

Neville went on, recounting little anecdotes about when he was in school with her parents, most stories Lily had heard before. But it was different hearing Neville tell them than her parents or aunts and uncles.

He imitated the squawks that rang through the castle during the brief period during his fourth year when Fred and George had come out with Canary Creams and it was next to impossible to walk down a corridor without someone turning into a giant yellow bird. He recounted all the difficult situations he'd gotten into because he'd forgotten jump a trick step or accidentally locked himself in a broom closet. He talked about her mother slyly pulling pranks on Pansy Parkinson, giving her mouse antlers for making fun of Hermione.

The result was that by the time Lily left his office for dinner, she was grinning broadly. It wasn't until she slid into the seat beside Hugo and he asked her why she was so late that she remembered the words she'd seen on the wall again. The miserable, sick feeling crept back into her stomach, but Lily found that she could push it back this time, now that the words weren't staring her straight in the face.

It took her a while to realize that Neville's stories hadn't merely been to cheer her up. He had been, in his own way, trying to tell her that they were all okay. That her mother had come out okay in the end.

Lily didn't tell the rest that the words were still there. She thought most of them had gone to look themselves, but none of them talked about it. They all avoided that little corner of the school if they could. When Lily had to pass through it, she did her best not to glance at the wall, not to think about the memories that it drug up.

But now every time she passed the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, she looked for the blue spot and couldn't help but smirk a little.

**A/N: How was that? Hope you liked it! Please tell me one way or the other! ;D**


	7. Crossing Paths

**A/N: Hey! This chapter's kinda short again, but I've been going over something like this for a long time, so I figured I should just write it down. I hope you all enjoy it! **

Snow swirled down over London, pouring out of the clouds as if someone had sliced a giant tear in the opaque ceiling. Christmas shoppers hurried from one store to the next, soaked from the snow in no time. The sky was already darkening, the long night falling quickly. Streetlights had already flared on in a burst of orange light, reminding the city to find a warm fireside soon.

Harry stood under an awning, out of the snow and the way of the bustling shoppers and their overflowing bags. He leaned against the cold glass window of the little toy store beside him, looking in at all the toys spread out in a luxurious display for Christmas, trying to interest the toddler in his arms in the brightly painted toy car or the big teddy bear. But Teddy was far more intrigued by his coat pocket, fumbling to unbutton it with clumsy, mittoned hands.

"Do you want a coat pocket for Chirstmas, Ted?" Harry asked, giving up on the toy display. No doubt the moment he moved away, something from the window would catch Teddy's eye and he'd squeal to go back and stare at it.

"Coat pocket," Teddy repeated, tugging at the lip of the pocket in frustration.

"Is that what I should tell Father Christmas to put in your stocking?" Harry asked, tugging Teddy's collar up to keep out the cold.

"Father Christmas," Teddy repeated, pronouncing 'th's like 'd's and skipping 'r's all together.

"That's right, Teddy. Do you know when Father Christmas comes?" Harry asked, playing along with the conversation nearly everybody had been going through with Teddy for weeks now, getting him excited for Christmas now that he was old enough to understand what was going on.

"Christmas Eve," Teddy answered absentmindedly, not taking his eyes off the coat pocket.

His _green _eyes, Harry noticed. Teddy had taken to imitating the features of whoever was giving him their attention. Now his eyes were bright, emerald green and the tufts of hair sticking out from the hat Mrs. Weasley had knitted for him were jet black. Harry was always torn between smiling and being sad when he saw Teddy doing this with him. Teddy should look like his _parents,_ and he felt like he was replacing them, even in Teddy's appearance.

Harry turned back to the window and pointed out a train set, which finally seemed to grab Teddy's attention away from his pocket button.

On the other side of the street, another young man, so different from the one beside the toy shop it was startling, stopped in his tracks, forcing people to swerve around him. The woman who had been walking beside him took a few steps to realize her companion had stopped.

"What is it, darling?" she asked, tottering back to him under the weight of all her shopping.

The young man raised an arm (weighed down with as much as the woman was carrying, though he hardly seemed to notice the burden) and pointed across the street. They made an odd pair, the man young and giant, towering over the bony woman beside him, her hair streaked with gray and her face lined, but their pale eyes were both fixed on the dark-haired man holding the baby, and their expressions of shock and bewilderment were identical. But where the woman's quickly filled with apprehension and dismay, the man's almost looked pleased.

And before the woman could stop him or call him back, the man was barreling across the street, shouting, "Harry! Hey, Harry!"

Harry's insides clenched at the sound of his name being called. He had hoped no one would recognize him out in Muggle London. That was why he was waiting out here in the cold rather than inside the crowded Leaky Cauldron or in Diagon Alley. But when he turned to see who was shouting his name, he felt his jaw drop.

"Dudley?" he croaked incredulously as the hulking blond form of his cousin ground to a halt in front of him.

"Yeah," Dudley said, nodding. "It's me. And it's you. Weird, right?"

"Yeah, weird," Harry repeated faintly.

He had spotted the woman who was following Dudley and looking like she'd rather be headed anywhere else.

"Hello… Aunt Petunia," he muttered when she had caught up and was clutching her son's arm.

"Hello," she said rather jerkily, not looking at him.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Harry was suddenly swept up in the memories he'd seen of Petunia and his mother as children.

"It's been a long time," Dudley said at last.

"Yeah, three years," Harry nodded.

"So… what've you been up to? Besides, you know, like, winning wars and stuff?" Dudley asked, swinging his arms awkwardly.

Harry saw both his and his mother's eyes flick towards the green-eyed, dark-haired two-year-old he was holding. But his brain seemed to be jammed. Just last week he'd been able to think perfectly clearly while getting curses fired at him by a group of former Snatchers, but put the Dursleys in front of him and he could barely gather enough words for a sentence.

Harry shrugged. The answers that bubbled to his lips were 'burying people' 'rebuilding a world' 'getting married' 'taking care of a kid' but for some reason he couldn't force any of them out. The barrier that had always separated his life from theirs was too firmly in place. What would these people understand anyway?

"What… what've you been doing?" he asked instead.

"Got a job at Dad's company," Dudley told him. "Just delivering shipments of drills for now."

"Er, cool," Harry said, nodding.

"How old is he?"

Aunt Petunia's sharp voice startled Harry. He'd nearly forgot she was there, disappearing beside Dudley's bulk. Her eyes were fixed on Teddy, who was burrowing shyly into Harry's shoulder, sneaking peaks at these strangers out of the corners of his eyes.

Something about the snap in her voice cleared Harry's head.

"His name's Teddy," he told her coolly, "and he's two and a half."

He watched Aunt Petunia's lips draw together in a stiff line of scandal and disapproval.

"Mum," Dudley muttered uncomfortably.

"He's my godson," Harry explained, hoisting Teddy higher on his hip. "I was friends with his parents. They died in the war."

He saw Aunt Petunia's eyes widen slightly, her disapproving expression fold into one of uncertainty.

"I'm sorry," Dudley muttered, shuffling his feet.

"Me too," said Harry quietly.

Ginny spotted the uncomfortable little group from half a block away. Even from that distance she could see the tension in Harry's stance, his set shoulders. And the sight of who he was talking to released a rush of fury inside her. Harry had rarely spoken to anyone about the Dursleys, but what he had told her, what her brothers and Hermione had told her…

But she knew the very last thing Harry wanted was for her to storm over and start shrieking insults at his relatives, so she pasted a grin onto her face as she hurried across the street.

"Hello, love," she said breathlessly, arriving at the group in a swirl of foggy breath and snowflakes. She pecked Harry on the cheek and reached for the little boy in his arms. "Hey, Teddy-bear!"

Teddy smiled when he saw her familiar face and turned his hair to bright red as she lifted him above her head and blew a raspberry on his cheek.

Petunia Dursley's eyes widened even more at the sight of the visible ends of Teddy's hair changing from jet black to bright red before her eyes.

"You must be Harry's aunt and cousin," Ginny said, turning to the Dursleys. She cuddled Teddy close to her, allowing her eyes to drift coolly from one face to the next. "I've heard about you."

She turned away from them again, dropping a kiss on the top of Teddy's head as she handed him back to Harry.

"We'd better get going, love. The others are waiting for us," she told him.

"Right," Harry muttered. "Bye Dudley. It was… good to see you again…"

He nodded to Aunt Petunia, then put an arm around Ginny and walked away.

Petunia Dursley watched her nephew as he left. She distinctly saw the glitter of a diamond on the girl's left hand as she leaned around Harry to make a face at the little boy to make him laugh. Harry leaned down to kiss her as they walked and the little boy nestled his head in the crook of Harry's neck, his eyes, still that familiar green, peered curiously at her over the safety of Harry's shoulder.

She watched her nephew and his wife and the child he had taken in reach the little knot of people who had congregated on the pavement half a block away and had been watching their exchange curiously. A tall, red-haired man she recognized from King's Cross flung an arm around him. A girl with bushy brown hair scooped the baby out of his arms and spun him around. A girl with long blond hair stepped forward to hug Harry.

Petunia Dursley watched as the group swallowed up her nephew in the warm glow of a family, and darkness fell and snow swirled and a cold wind blew around her.

**A/N: What do you think? Short and sweet? Anyway, thank you all so much for your feedback! It's wonderful! **


	8. Nightmares

**A/N: Hi…. So I'm really sorry it's been, what? Three months since I've updated this? If you've stuck with me, you have all my gratitude. Thank you guys so much for reviewing and offering ideas and encouragement! The delay for this piece was because I kept rewriting it and not liking how it turned out. Then I'd switch gears and try to work on another chapter, but this one would always be bobbing at the back of my mind, so those didn't work either. **

**But this one's done now and I hope you'll all like it! It's kind of connected to chapter two, with Al's boggart. You know, half of my chapters take place at the beginning of Al's third year… hm. Anyway… **

**And erm, I haven't acquired the rights to the Harry Potter universe in the last three months either, nor have I spontaneously turned into JK Rowling. **

James jerked awake as something brushed over his face. With a startled yelp, he swatted at it. A shadow moved right next to his mattress, someone stumbling backwards.

"Who's there?" James said loudly, shooting upright and reaching for the wand lying on his bedside table.

"It's me. Sorry! Sorry! I didn't –"

"Al?" James groaned, recognizing his brother's fast, apologetic whisper and slumping back against the headboard. "What are you _doing_ in here?"

"Nothing! I just… I had a bad dream and –"

"James? Wassat you?"

"What's going on?"

The rustle of sheets and rasp of bed hangings being opened filled the dorm as the other boys in James's year woke up. Lamps flared and James could see Albus standing awkwardly at the foot of his bed, looking embarrassed. He rolled his eyes and jumped out of bed.

"It's just my brother being a freak," he explained, grabbing Albus by the shoulders and steering him past his staring roommates. "Go back to bed."

"I'm sorry!" Albus said again as they reached the door and James shoved him through it. "I didn't mean to wake you up!"

James slipped out onto the landing after him and snapped the door shut against the curious eyes.

"I was just making sure you were still breathing," Albus explained hastily as James rounded on him. "It was an accident, James! Don't get mad!"

He kept babbling explanations and apologies, but all James heard through his groggy stupor was a shrill keening. Shaking his head a little, he took a half-step forward to place his hands on Albus's shoulders.

"Al," James interrupted, digging his fingers into his brother's shoulders. "Go to bed. And stay there. For the rest of tonight. And tomorrow night. And every other night."

He spun Albus around and gave him a push towards the stairs. Albus stumbled a little, catching himself on the railing.

"Fine," he said coolly, straightening. "Sorry for being concerned over your well-being. I won't bother in the future."

James exploded with exasperation, flinging his arms up and sputtering.

"What – how does – _what _could possibly happen to me in the dormitory _right above yours_?" he demanded, gaping at Albus.

Albus shrugged, staring moodily at his bare feet. James sighed loudly and sank to the floor, shaking his head.

"This is the second time this week. Al, if this is about that stupid boggart, you need to either get over it or talk to Neville because waking me up every other night is more likely to end up with _you_ dead."

"I know," Albus muttered. "I'm trying, but…."

He trailed off, flushing a little. James shook his head and heaved himself to his feet. He flicked Albus hard on the forehead.

"Ow!"

"There you go. Satisfied that I'm perfectly fine, now?"

"Yeah, thanks," Albus muttered, scowling at him as he rubbed his forehead. "Sorry I _disturbed _you."

He turned and slouched away down the stairs. Letting out a breath of frustration, James turned and slid back into his own dormitory. To his relief, most of his roommates had retreated back to their warm sheets.

"Al okay?" Fred mumbled sleepily from the bed beside James's as he climbed under the covers.

"Yeah, fine," James grunted, flopping face-first onto his pillow. "He just digressed about seven years, apparently."

XxX

"…And it was horrible!"

"Finally catch the sound of your own voice, did you, Bennit?"

James smirked as the redheaded Slytherin girl he'd shot this at looked up to scowl at him.

"No, just accidentally looked directly into your face," Madeline Bennit shot back.

James clapped a hand to his heart, faking a wounded expression as the other Slytherin girls tittered.

"Ooo, someone woke up on the wrong side of the troll bridge this morning," he retorted.

Fred dragged James away as Madeline went for her wand.

"You're gonna get yourself hexed again," he muttered, pulling James along the corridor until they couldn't see Madeline staring daggers at James's back anymore. "Why do you have to tick her off whenever you're within ten feet of her?"

James shrugged, nonchalantly throwing himself down onto the ground to wait for their classroom door to open.

"Why does Uncle Charlie go after _his _dragons?" he asked, looking up at Fred.

Fred shook his head. "Honestly mate, even _I _question you're sanity sometimes."

"Oi! Potter!"

James looked around reflexively, expecting to see one of the poor Slytherin saps always vying for Madeline Bennit's attention coming to defend her honor. But the boy was a Gryffindor from a year below them, and he hadn't called out to James.

James noticed Albus for the first time, slumped against the opposite wall, waiting for his classroom door to be opened as well. He'd had his head buried in his arms but glanced up at the other boy – James thought his name was McLaggen, but he made a point of not hanging around his brother's year much if he could.

"What d'you want, McLaggen?" Albus asked tiredly.

He looked tired, too. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was kind of peaky.

_Stop thinking like Gran_, James told himself sternly.

"Just to give you something," McLaggen smirked. He was talking loud enough to have attracted the attention of half the corridor, and Albus flushed a little under all the stares.

McLaggen pulled something out of his bag and dropped it into Albus's lap. His little gang of sidekicks sniggered as Albus picked up the gift, looking nonplussed. Leaning sideways a little, James saw that it was an old teddy Bear with a big purple bow looped around its neck. He groaned inwardly.

"It's my sister's," McLaggen told Al. "She says she doesn't really need her teddy bear anymore now that she's a first year, so you could borrow it."

"Yeah," one of McLaggen's buddies added, snickering more than ever as he pulled a couple of long white things out of his own bag. "And we got some candles for you, too."

"We know none of it will make up for the blankie you left at home this year, but whatever helps keep away the scary darkness," McLaggen went on in a stage whisper that everyone listening could hear.

"Don't worry, mate," another one of the Sidekicks put in, clapping Al on the back. "I'll make sure to check under your bed for monsters tonight."

McLaggen and his buddies burst out laughing and several of the watching students had to muffle their own laughter. Albus was burning red, now, but he wouldn't look up at McLaggen. He just sat there and let them rip him apart, squeezing the teddy bear so tight his knuckles were white.

"Bastard," Fred muttered, glowering at McLaggen. "What d'you think? Bat-bogey or moose antlers?"

"Neither," James muttered, springing to his feet as Professor Bridwell finally opened the classroom door. "C'mon, gotta get a good seat."

He dragged Fred up and pushed him into the classroom as quickly as he could, slumping into a seat at the very back.

"It's a miracle, Freddy," he groaned, "I've got the world's only walking invertebrate for a brother."

If Albus was embarrassed by that little show out in the corridor, James was mortified. Why did his brother have to be so _wimpy_? Just sit there and let everyone laugh at him? How Albus had ever made it into Gryffindor was a mystery to him.

"So why wouldn't you let me hex that prat?" Fred demanded, dropping his books onto the desk beside James.

"It wouldn't _fix _anything," James said in frustration. "Why d'you think McLaggen waited until Muggle Studies to pick on Al? He won't do it when Rose's around 'cause he knows she'll kick his arse. If you do something, he'll just wait until we're not around. If Al can't tell him to knock it off himself, he better get used to stuff like that."

"Well, it's too late this time around," Fred told him. "I already jinxed the git's shoelaces together."

XxX

_The house was too quiet. Eerily quiet. Albus stood barefoot on the cold tiled floor in his kitchen, his heart beating wildly, terror shooting up his spine. Something terrible had happened. As if pulled by a magnet, he began to move towards the stairs, squinting at the familiar things made unfamiliar by the darkness. Half-way up the steps, Albus froze, his whole body going cold. The hall was dark. In all of his memory, he could not recall a night when the hall light was not glowing dimly, warding off the shadows. _

_His breathing now coming in sharp gasps, Albus tore up the rest of the stairs and flung open his parents' bedroom door. Cold moonlight poured through their window, but the room was empty, the bed untouched. Albus whirled and wrenched open James's door across the hall, but his bed was empty, too. Lily was not in her bed either, and Albus even pounded up the dark attic steps to see if Teddy was occupying the room that was his when he stayed over. But he wasn't. _

_And a wave of icy certainty swept over Albus, the haunting feeling that he was utterly alone in the dark house. Something terrible had happened. _

_He flew down the stairs, across the hall, and down the second flight of stairs, going so fast he was in danger of falling and breaking his neck. Albus swung round the end of the banister and came to a shuddering halt in the doorway to the sitting room, horror flooding him, rising like bile in his chest, making him sway. _

_Five prone figures were crumpled on the floor, pale, motionless faces bathed in that icy-silver moonlight, eyes open and staring blankly. Their faces swam up at him, so familiar, yet alien in stillness. An inhuman-sounding cry ripped from his throat as he fell forward into the room, his face inches away from his mother's empty gaze. _

_And then a shadow moved behind him. He whirled. A skeletal, utterly black figure swooped down on him with a mad, horrible grin._

Albus clawed at the suffocating darkness, gasping for breath…

XxXxX

"Oi, Potter! Your brother's freaking out."

"Give him his teddy bear and put him back to bed," James groaned into his pillow, not even opening his eyes.

"He's like, dying, or something," the third year persisted, pushing the dormitory door open wider.

"What d'you mean?" James asked groggily, pulling back his curtains and rolling reluctantly out of bed, squinting against the light spilling in from the open door.

"I dunno, it's like he can't breathe or something."

That woke James up. He scrambled up, exchanging a look of alarm with Fred, who had pulled back the hangings on his own bed. James pushed past the third year that had come to get him, Fred on his heels, and hurried down the spiral staircase to his brother's dormitory.

All the lamps were on and boys were gaping around their hangings at Albus, who sat bold-upright in bed, gasping and choking on air, bone-white and wild-eyed.

"What's the matter with him?" James demanded, kneeling next to the mattress and pounding Al on the back.

"I think he was having a nightmare," a blond boy James thought was called Eric Compson said from where he sat at the end of Albus's bed, having been attempting to calm him down.

"You aren't helping, you know," piped up an odd-looking boy from the corner of the room, watching James's efforts with wide, owlish eyes. "He's hyperventilating. If he doesn't get more carbon dioxide in his bloodstream, he'll pass out."

"Thanks for being generous with your knowledge," Fred said irritably to the boy. "Any suggestions on how to do that?"

"Put a bag over his mouth and nose so he breathes in the carbon dioxide he's breathing out," the boy shrugged, looking on curiously as Albus struggled, eyes starting to roll.

"And you couldn't have mentioned this sooner?" Fred snapped, lunging for Albus's bedside table and rooting around for the bag of sweets he knew (because he and James had nicked from it) was hidden at the back.

The boy shrugged again, his springy, mouse-brown hair bouncing. "No one asked."

Fred rolled his eyes. He found the paper bag, dumped out its contents, and thrust it at James, who pressed the opening over his brother's face. The brown paper collapsed in on itself and re-inflated with loud crackles, and slowly Al's breathing started to slow down.

"Easy, mate," Fred murmured, squeezing his shoulder. "You'll be alright."

A stout, broad-shouldered boy snickered from behind them and whispered something to his lackeys, one of whom was the boy who had come to get James. That one didn't seem to find the remark all that amusing, but the other boy tittered almost sycophantically.

James whirled on them. "What'd you say, McLaggen?"

"None of your business, Potter," Connor McLaggen said condescendingly.

"If you're the one who broke my brother, I'll personally knock your teeth out," James growled, taking a step towards him.

Screw making Al fight his own battles with this git. Connor McLaggen was the sort of kid he hardly needed an excuse to punch in the face.

"I had nothing to do with it. He broke himself," McLaggen drawled, but he kept a wary eye on James's clenched fists all the same.

"James," Fred said warningly behind him, helping Albus keep the bag pressed over his face.

Scowling, James turned reluctantly back to his brother. "Gonna make it?"

Albus nodded, pushing Fred's hands away and sitting forward, eyes fixed on his knees. He was shaking hard.

"What happened?" Fred muttered, trying to give his cousin some semblance of privacy under the stares of all his roommates.

Albus shrugged, dropping his hands to his lap. The bag crumpled beneath them.

Eric slid tactfully off the bed and retreated to his own, drawing the hangings with pointed looks at the others. None of them followed suit.

"He was screaming like a banshee, didn't you hear?" the boy who had come to get James, Dolton Arding he thought, put in.

"Probably wet himself," McLaggen snickered and his sidekick tittered again.

James's eyes flashed as Albus flushed a dull pink.

"It was just a stupid dream," he mumbled shakily.

"Must've been one hell of a dream," Fred said sympathetically.

Albus shivered, nodding.

James scrutinized his little brother for a moment, biting his lip. Then, making up his mind, he seized Albus's elbow and dragged him out of bed.

"What're you doing?" Albus croaked, stumbling as James pulled him across the dormitory.

"Something," James told him. At the door he paused and glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, McLaggen?"

McLaggen, who's bed was beside the door, looked over at James, condescension written all over his face.

James drew back a fist and rammed it into McLaggen's jaw.

"Maybe that'll keep your mouth shut," he spat while McLaggen doubled over, groaning.

Fred turned away to hide his smirk while McLaggen's lackeys crowded around him, gaping.

XxX

"James, seriously, where are we going?" Albus asked, panting a little as James toed him swiftly through a maze of corridors.

"To find Neville," James said.

Albus pulled to a stop, yanking on James's arm. He was shaking his head. "No way, James. I'm not doing psychotherapy with the Head of House."

"Then what _are _you going to do about this?" James demanded, rounding on him. "Al, we just had to stop you from passing out. Obviously whatever's the matter with you isn't going away."

Albus tugged his elbow out of James grip and backed away. "There's nothing _wrong _with me, okay? I'm not spilling my guts to Neville so he can go reporting to Mum and Dad and they can come marching up here like concerned parents. It's none of their business and they can't do anything about it anyway."

He ducked his head, and James was struck by a sudden thought.

"Is it – is it like when you were a little kid?" he asked, biting his lip. "Like when we stayed over at someone else's house while Mum and Dad were away and you'd wake up screaming bloody murder, but you couldn't remember why in the morning?"

"Sort of," Albus mumbled.

James sighed. "Then what about Lancing? He won't tell Mum and Dad."

"Aren't you listening?" Albus demanded, looking up at his brother. "They _can't help me_. I don't want to go whining to a teacher. Just – just let me handle it on my own, okay?"

He turned around and began plodding back up the corridor, shoulders slumped. But he hadn't gotten halfway to the nearest staircase when James's sharp voice came after him. "Albus!"

"Leave me alone, James –"

"No," James snapped. He had caught up to Albus in a few quick strides, and caught him by the upper arm. "Look at you. This isn't 'okay', Al. Whatever's going on, you _aren't _handling it. Just like you don't handle McLaggen and his stupid posse. Fight back, ask for help, I don't care, just don't stand there and take all this crap!"

Albus stopped trying to pry himself out of James's grip and turned his head away.

"Come on," James said a little more gently than he usually spoke to his brother. "It's Neville. He won't tell Mum and Dad if you ask him not to." And when that didn't seem to convince Albus, "Come on, Al, it's _Neville_. How can this possibly be any more embarrassing than when you got stuck up the tree in Hannah and Neville's back garden and he had to climb up and get you and carry you down?"

"I was nine, then," Albus muttered.

"You were also bawling," James reminded him.

"Was not."

"Yes you were."

"You know, this is really helpful right now, James. Thanks." Albus told his brother sarcastically.

"I'm just reminding you that Neville's not going to make a big deal over this," said James. "Let him try to help you, okay? Okay, Al?" He gave Albus a little shake.

"Alright, fine," Albus muttered, giving in at last. "You know, I think I liked it better when you didn't care what was going on with me," he grumbled as James lead him on down the passage.

"Tough luck," James told him, cuffing him lightly on the ear.

Albus ducked out of the way, smiling slightly.

**A/N: So how was that for a comeback? I'm thinking about continuing this little story line, but switching the focus to Neville and showing a little more about his life as professor and family man, so if you want to see how Neville handles everything, stay tuned. Hopefully it will be one of the next few chapters, but I'm not promising the next one. **

**On that note, Scorch, I think it was you who asked for a Rose/Scorpius chapter. It's in the works, I promise! I've got loads of ideas, so hopefully now that this is done, I'll be able to get back to them all! **

**Thanks again you guys! You rock!**


	9. Here With Us

**A/N: Alright, well, this isn't Neville, nor is it Rose/Scorp like I've been promising. They ARE coming… when I find time. Finals next week, then I've got to get on this Scholarship thing for real if I want to go to college next year. My updates are painfully slow, I know, and I'm sorry, but they'll be that way until I secure my future *gulp*. **

**Anyway, about this chapter. It's a bit... displaced, I think. I had originally come up with the idea to put into my other story, "Timing is Everything", which is about how Al came into the world. But the more I wrote, the more it seemed better read in a different way. Which makes it a bit short for this story, but here it is anyway. I hope you like it, and once I find the time, I've got a few ideas brewing for you! :) Thanks to everyone who reviews! You are my inspiration! **

Harry closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the fire wash over him. He rocked gently in the old rocking chair in the corner of the living room that had once sat in Ron's and then Ginny's nursery and which Arthur had fixed up to give to them when James was born. It was Harry's favorite piece of furniture in the house. He could feel the sense of family in the old wood grain, the nights of lost sleep parents before him had spent in it. An old meaning from parent to child that he did not have very much of himself.

The crinkle of paper brought him back to the present, and he smiled to himself as he looked over at the couch, where Ginny sat, an arm around each dark-haired boy on either side of her. A photo album lay open in her lap, and the boys leaned in to look at the pictures, round glasses slipping down the nose of the smaller boy so that he had to push them back up impatiently.

"What was he like?" James asked.

Harry saw his son's eyes hungrily taking in the images, and, curious, raised himself enough to catch a glimpse of what they were looking at. From what he could tell at this angle, it was a dark-haired man dancing with a red-haired woman. His smile turned melancholy. How he wish he knew how to answer James's questions about his namesake.

"He was brave," Ginny told James, leaning over to kiss the top of his head. "So very brave. And loyal to the people he loved."

Their younger son soaked up his mother's words with rapt attention, but James was apparently bored with this information by now.

"_Everyone _says that," he complained.

"Not everyone," Harry interjected with slight amusement. "Just your Mum and I because we're the only ones you can ask."

But James ignored him. "I want to know what he was _really _like. I mean, if I were to spend an afternoon with him, how would it go?"

Ginny bit her lip, apparently trying to think of what to say.

"He liked Quidditch," Harry offered. "McGonagall says he was a great a flier. You'd probably end up talking about that."

"Well…." Ginny began thoughtfully, none of them taking any notice of Harry's suggestion. Even though it was his father they were discussing. The boys were too wrapped up in their mother at the moment. And Harry let her take over. She knew as much as he did, really. He had spent countless nights by this fire before James was born, recounting all he knew of his parents for her because it felt good to remember what he could, even if it was a painfully small amount.

"He was curious about everything, it seemed. Never could keep himself out of trouble at school. He seemed to hear every conversation he wasn't meant to, and that was before extendable ears, mind you," Ginny said. "And he loved flying. He was mad about Quidditch." She allowed herself a grin, here. "Might have played for England if there weren't… other things to deal with."

Ginny seemed to lose the thread of her thought for a moment.

"He spent years trying to get my mum to give him the time of day," Harry put in as Ginny seemed out of suggestions.

James was impatient. "I _know _all of that," he said, looking back at the picture. "I want to know what he was _like_."

"I wish we could tell you that, Jamie," Harry murmured, getting up from the rocking chair and moving over to a picture on the bookshelf. It was the one of his parents' wedding, with Sirius laughing in the background. He had framed it.

"He was… quiet," Ginny murmured from behind him.

Harry snorted. "Hardly, from what I've heard," he said, turning to look at her. "Hagrid said Dad an Sirius were like Fred and George at school. I can't imagine they were ever very quiet."

But Ginny didn't look up at him. She kept her gaze on the picture, a strange expression crossing her face.

"Not all the time, I suppose," she went on. "Once you got him going, he was hardly quiet. He was passionate about things. Justice and loyalty and that sort of thing. And when you got him going on _those _things… well, he could be quite… powerful."

Harry raised an eyebrow at her, but Ginny kept going on.

"And he was funny, too, if you looked for it. It used to surprise me when he'd come out with something funny, although I suppose it shouldn't have. He was just so serous most of the time, I was never expecting it. I'd sit there and laugh to myself for ages after everyone else had moved on because it caught me off guard."

"What in the world are you talking about, Gin?" Harry asked in bewilderment, taking a step closer.

Ginny sighed. "And he loved people so much. He'd do anything for us, you know. Anything."

"Did he love me?" their younger son asked, looking up at Ginny with wide green eyes.

"Of _course _he did, love," she told him in an oddly choked voice, running a hand through his hair and kissing the top of his head, too.

"Then how come he didn't wait to say goodbye," the little boy asked, and Harry was alarmed to see tears leaking out from under his glasses.

"Oh sweetheart," Ginny murmured, lifting the round frames from his face and setting them on the side table. The photo album slid off her lap as she gathered her youngest son into her arms. James was now staring at his hands, biting down on his own quivering lip.

An icy feeling was slipping through Harry as he watched the three of them. Slowly, with the cold feeling of dread in his stomach, Harry crossed the room to look at the picture they had been studying. The book lay open on the floor to the page, and Harry stopped a foot away, recognizing the photo even upside down. It was a dark-haired man dancing with his redheaded fiancé in the living room of the burrow on the night they had gotten engaged, Christmas Eve, 1999. Twinkling fairy lights on the Christmas tree cast a gentle glow on them as he spun Ginny, both too wrapped up to notice Molly and her camera half-hidden in the doorway.

"I miss him," the littler boy was sobbing into his mother's shoulder, now.

"You never even _met _him," James shot at his brother, wiping angrily at his cheeks. "You can't _miss _him."

"James," Ginny said reproachfully.

But James had already leapt to his feet. "Why did he have to go and leave?" he demanded angrily, whirling on his mother. "Didn't he want to get to know us? Didn't he know what it's like to look at pictures of us together and not remember that happy little family? Didn't he _care_ what it would be like for _us_?"

"James, your father did what he did to keep us safe," Ginny said, and there was a small amount of anger creeping into her voice. She stood up, holding the littler boy to her chest. "I hope you know that."

The anger flooded out of James's face so quickly, Ginny might have pulled a plug. He looked ashamed instead, nodding at the carpet.

"It's just hard to remember sometimes," he mumbled.

"I know it, love," Ginny said gently. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "But he loved you both so much, I can promise that. Come on. Take your brother upstairs and get your pajamas on, and I'll make us some hot chocolate."

She let the little boy slide to the floor and his brother pulled him to the stairs. Ginny watched them go, a teary smile flitting across her face as she listened to their voices mingling upstairs. Then she turned away, hugging herself, and bent to pick up the fallen photo album. She paused, staring down at the picture of them dancing, newly engaged.

Harry took a step nearer. "Gin?" he whispered. She did not look up, made no indication that she had heard him. Fresh tears trickled down her cheeks and she quickly wiped them away. She ran a finger over his photographic self, then hugged the book to her chest and turned her face up to the ceiling. The pain in her expression nearly made him stagger.

"They don't even know you," she choked out. "Why? Why couldn't you just stay here with us?"

Her knees hit the floor. Harry tried to catch her, but she went right through his hands, crumpled alone in the middle of the sitting room.

"It's not fair!" one of the boys was saying upstairs, little voice clogged with tears again. "I never even got to _meet _him. He didn't even stay to see me!"

"We weren't as important as the whole world, I guess," the other one said.

The familiar room began to spin around Harry, faster and faster until it flew into a thousand pieces.

Harry jerked upright, gasping in the darkness, the top of his head smacking into plaster. The blankets fell in a cascade down the side of his bunk. His bunk. In the little dorm room in the safe house which he shared with five other Aurors on his team. Where he was now, instead of at home with James and Ginny, who was expecting their second son. Here he was taking chances again. Like Sirius took chances. Like Remus and Tonks took chances.

He groped for the thin pieces of paper he kept under his pillow and snatched his wand up to shoot a thin stream of light to see by. And he looked at the two pictures, the one of James and Ginny and Teddy, and the blurry, blue-white sonogram image a healer had promised him was a picture of his unborn son.

And he made a silent vow in the dark, cold, cramped room he'd spent far too long it: _I will come home. I promise. No matter what it takes, I'll come home to you_.

**A/N: Well… what'd you think? Please, please, please let me know! I realize because it was written to potentially fit into my other story, there were a few things, like Al's name never being mentioned, that may have seemed a bit odd, but I think it reads better here, where you don't know right away that it's a dream, right? **

**Thanks for reading! Even if I don't post for a while, I'll still be procrastinating by checking for and replying to reviews, so drop me a line! :D And I'm putting a poll up on my profile for this story, so check it out! ;D**


	10. Paper Hearts

**A/N: Once again, not what I've been promising, but this is for My Dear Professor McGonagall's mother/child competition as well as for thecompletebookworm, winner of my Forgotten Family Ties competition from way back in December. Long time coming, I know, but it's hear at last! Everything I keep promising will be coming… eventually, I promise! Thank you all for your lovely reviews and encouragement! :)**

Just as the sun was dropping low in the winter sky, and the eager tension of a school day building to a close could practically be felt out in the street, trembling the chain link fences enclosing the playground, a bell sounded across the blacktop. In moments, children were pouring out of the doors. They ran for the yellow busses snorting exhaust in the chilly air, the cars lined up along the curb, gathered in packs on the pavement, and launched themselves at the swings with excited shrieks and loud chatter.

Girls giggled more than usual as they put their heads together. Every now and then they would glance at a passing boy and he would blush or stick his tongue out more readily than on an ordinary day. Several students munched heart-shaped cookies as they climbed into their parents' waiting cars and nearly every small hand clutched a stack of brightly colored cards decorated with glitter and hearts and perhaps a few wavering lines about violets and roses. It seemed to be a particularly festive and energetic afternoon for most of the students at Westridge Primary School.

Most of them.

Teddy Lupin wandered out of the big double doors quite a bit behind most of his classmates. He held his own stack of valentines just like all the other children, but with the other hand he dragged his book bag along the ground, listlessly kicking at melting chunks of snow that had slid onto the walk. He didn't even seem to notice the group of girls who cast him furtive looks, elbowing each other as they muffled giggles in their mittened hands.

Keeping his head down and his sandy bangs in his eyes, Teddy trudged along the pavement towards the silver-haired woman seated primly on a bench at the end of the block as she always was after school, waiting for him.

"Hello, Teddy-bear," she said, smiling in greeting as he joined her and running a hand affectionately through his hair. School was the only time he kept it a normal color. By the time she was eight, his mother hadn't even been doing that much. "How was your party?" she asked as the pair of them waited to cross the street, eyeing the cards Teddy held.

He shrugged, glancing down at the cards as if he'd forgotten he was even still carrying them. And that seemed to be all he had to say on the matter.

Andromeda Tonks scrutinized her normally-talkative eight-year-old grandson, gripping his elbow as they hurried across the street and made for home.

"Did everybody like the cards you gave them?" she asked.

"I guess," Teddy mumbled.

"Did Miss Palma bring you treats like she said she was going to?"

Teddy gave a jerk of his head that barely passed as a nod.

"Did you get any special valentines?"

For the first time a spark seemed to cross Teddy's face, and his breath caught a little before he answered, "No."

Andromeda sighed internally. She'd thought it was coming to that the moment she'd seen him plodding up the sidewalk toward her. Teddy was getting to that stage where he might get his first taste of puppy-love.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much, Teddy. Girls only give valentines to the boys they want to harass, anyway," she tried to assure him. "If she really likes you, she's probably too embarrassed to say so."

They had reached their house by now, and Teddy had jumped up the steps ahead of her, but at these words he turned with a completely incredulous look on his face.

"You think I wanted a special valentine from a _girl_?" he asked, scrunching up his nose like he'd tasted something sour. He didn't even try to explain how foolish his grandmother was being with that thought. He just pushed open the front door, shaking his head, and dumped his bag and heart-shaped cards unceremoniously by the bottom of the stairs.

But there was definitely something bothering him. Teddy didn't linger long in the kitchen, not even when Andromeda offered to fix him a snack. Usually he had endless things to say about his school day, about when they'd next visit the Burrow or an upcoming outing with Harry and Ginny, or any number of other things. But not today. Teddy barely said two words before he disappeared up the stairs, leaving his grandmother looking after him with a slight frown pushing her eyebrows together.

XxX

Teddy pushed open his bedroom door, but two steps into the room, he changed his mind. He didn't want to sit in here and stare up at the walls covered in drawings and pictures and cards and think about the one valentine he wanted.

Gran didn't understand. The last thing Teddy wanted was for one of those snickery girls to be chasing him. But Valentine's Day wasn't just for schoolyard crushes and gooey romances, was it? It was just a day for love. That was what Miss Palma said. The way you love your friends and your family as much as anybody else.

Teddy wandered to the end of the hall and pushed the door that led to the narrow attic steps open with a creak. As he listened to his footsteps reverberate in the close space, a memory of that morning flooded up in his head.

It had been Eva Miller who brought it up that morning in the 'share circle' their teacher had them make to start off every day. Teddy hardly ever could share anything in the share circle because he couldn't very well tell a class full of Muggle kids that his godfather had taken him flying on a broomstick last weekend or that his friend Vicky accidentally turned his favorite stuffed frog into a _real _frog. But normally he liked hearing what everyone else had to say.

They had been talking about Valentine's Day that morning, of course, and Eva Miller put her little nail-polished hand up and told the whole class about how her mother got her a heart-shaped ring for Valentine's Day. Bragging wasn't unusual for Eva. Her parents spoiled her rotten. But then everyone else had to go and say how _their _mums took them for their valentine, too. Macy Ferris even brought out a little heart-shaped sticky note with X's and O's that her mother left on her lunch that morning.

Teddy was the only one who didn't say anything, but this time it was for a different reason: he was the only one who didn't _have _a mum to give him a valentine. Maybe after eight years he should be used to it, but there were some days when it felt like everything he looked at reminded him of the parents he'd never met, and by the end of the day when everyone was handing out their cards, all he could think about was what it would be like to see 'love, Mum," written on one of them.

But he never would, and it made his stomach hurt a little every time he remembered. So he was going to try to forget.

There was a place Teddy went when he tried to forget things. It didn't work very well because he only ever went there when he wanted to forget something, so he just ended up remembering all the things he'd tried to forget before. But usually when he left, he left the memory behind with all the others for a while.

The attic was dusty because Gran never came up here. It was her place for forgetting, too, but in a different way. She put all of Granddad Ted's old things up here with Teddy's mother's baby clothes and some other stuff from people Teddy had never met. But there was a path in the dust that led to a window on the other side of the attic. Teddy thought of it as his window because there was a dip in the roof right outside it that made it an excellent place to sit and stare out across the little back garden, alone with your thoughts.

But Gran must have been up here since the last time Teddy had come to brood (as Ginny called it) because there was a heavy cardboard box right in his way that he had to push aside. And of course when he pushed it, it tipped over and spilled half its contents across the floor.

With a heavy sigh, Teddy dropped down to gather up the dark, plastic rectangles that had been in the box. Tapes, they were called. They were his Granddad Ted's video tapes. Gran had told him about the Muggle contraption he'd gotten from his brother back before Teddy's parents had even met. She didn't know how to work it, though, so it stayed up here in the attic with the boom box and the old TV and the records Granddad Ted used to like to play.

Teddy sat cross-legged and squinted down at the peeling labels on the top of the tapes. There were only a few of them, and he had to brush the dust off to read them. One was blank, the other said 'Andy' (which must be Gran because her real name was Andromeda), and the last one said 'Dora'.

Teddy cradled the one marked with his mother's name in his cupped hands as though it were made of glass. He didn't know how it worked exactly (Granddad Arthur had tried to explain it to him, but he'd only managed to get himself confused), but he knew that somehow on this tape his mother's voice and face was stored. And right then he wanted more than anything in the world to find it.

Carefully holding the tape in one hand, Teddy got to his knees and peered into the box he'd toppled. Sure enough, the camera that made this tape was in there. It was a big black mass of buttons and plastic covered thickly in dust, and it took both of Teddy's hands to get it out of the box. He rested it on his knee and frowned down at the cables trailing from it. It plugged into the TV somehow, but Teddy didn't know how.

Tentatively, he ran his fingers along the buttons until, with a click that nearly made him drop the camera, a little screen popped out from the side and flickered with blue light. The buttons glowed now, showing symbols Teddy vaguely recognized from the gadget Harry and Ginny sometimes got out to play Muggle films on. He pushed one of them and something else popped open, a slot that looked just big enough to swallow up the tape Teddy still held.

He hesitated, looking down at the tape. He didn't want to wreck it by pressing the wrong button, but what good was it just sitting in his hand? Then Teddy thought of the picture on his nightstand that showed a pretty woman with pink hair laughing at the camera. How many times had he wished with all his heart that he could hear that laugh? So Teddy slid the tape into the slot. It took a couple of tries to get it in the right way, but finally he managed to snap the slot shut.

There was a muffled whirring from inside the machine. The glowing screen flickered. Teddy panicked, thinking the contraption was shredding that precious tape to pieces. But then an image popped onto the screen and voices bubbled up from some unseen speaker and Teddy couldn't have moved even if the house was burning down around him.

_The unsteady picture of a door at the end of a hallway grew larger until it took up the whole screen. A hand appeared, reaching for the doorknob, and then the door was swinging open into a bright bedroom. A beautiful woman in a white gown whirled, long brown curls swinging around her face. _

"_Dad!" she complained, putting a hand up to block her face from the camera. "You're not supposed to be up here!" _

_But there was laughter in her voice, an untouchable happiness in her face as she lowered her hand and tried to give the camera a stern look. _

"_Why not? I'm not the groom," a voice said from out of sight, behind the camera probably. It was a man's cheerful, mellow voice that sounded like it was smiling. _

"_Girls only. Didn't you see the sign?" the woman said, pointing behind the camera. The room spun until the image settled on the door once more, shifted up a little to focus on a hand-drawn sign proclaiming in Ginny's pink, looping, highlighter-writing 'NO GUYS PAST THIS POINT!' with many fierce underlines._

"_I'm the father of the bride. It doesn't apply to me," Ted said, turning the camera back on his daughter. "You look beautiful, Dora." _

_She beamed and spun, the skirt of her gown flying out a little like a princess's. The ends of her curls were still bright, bubble-gum pink. One of her elbows accidentally sent a hat stand in the corner crashing into the wall, but she hardly seemed to notice. _

_Ted chuckled softly. "And how do you feel?" _

_That seemed to subdue her a little. She wrapped an arm around the bedpost and leaned against it, gaze drifting for a moment. Then a smile lit her face. _

"_Happy," she said quietly, closing her eyes. "Happier than I've ever been." _

The screen flickered blue and for a moment Teddy thought that was all there was. He wasn't ready for it to be over, though, actually reached out a hand as though he could pull his mother back onto the screen. But then the image came back, only it was a different image than his mother glowing in her wedding dress.

_They were back in the dimly lit hallway, the camera tilting and swinging wildly. Snatches of people moving and the ruffling of fabric and hushed voices came through in a discordant shush of background noise. Then abruptly the camera righted itself, came into focus on an older woman hurrying toward them, her dark hair pinned up and a harried expression on her face. _

"_Everybody's waiting downstairs, are you ready?" _

_Dora's voice from somewhere to the left said patiently, "Yes, Mum, ready when you are." _

_The woman nodded, a smile flickering across her face briefly before she turned back to the camera, reaching for it. "For heaven's sake, Ted, you're not taking that hideous thing through the whole ceremony –" _

_The image twisted wildly again for a second before it went out, and when it came back it was steadied, looking at a crowded sitting room from a corner. _

_Dining room chairs, rockers, a sofa, and the piano bench made a makeshift isle up the middle of the small room. A wizened old man stood at the head of the isle with an anxious-looking groom beside him. Grey streaked the groom's light brown hair, but he wasn't _very _old. A handful of people filled the seats, mostly redheads. A dark-skinned man with a gold hoop glittering in one ear sat at the back muttering to a grizzled, disfigured man with a round, electric-blue eye spinning crazily around in his head. _

_Music started to play from the unoccupied piano at the head of the room. Ted and Dora came into the camera's field of vision, moving slowly up the very short isle. The groom's anxious face softened, and he smiled as he took Dora's hands. A few quick vows were exchanged, rings slid onto fingers, then the bride and groom kissed and the room erupted with applause. The redheaded girl jumped up from the front row to hug Dora. Then the screen went blank again. _

_It took a moment for the new image to come up, and when it did, everything had changed. They were in a kitchen now. The harried woman and the bride and groom sat around a dinner table, only the woman didn't look so harried and the bride and groom were just an ordinary husband and wife. Dora's hair was back to short and completely bright pink. Her white gown was replaced by a torn concert T-shirt. Her husband's clothes were shabbier, too, and his face seemed more lined. He stared down at his plate as the two women talked. _

_Dora noticed the camera first. An indulgent smile crossed her face, then she started making ridiculous expressions at the camera, sticking out her tongue and making her nose change into more of a beak. Her mother clucked disapprovingly and turned to look at the camera, too. _

"_We're in the middle of dinner, Ted. I don't know why you keep insisting on fiddling with that thing," she said. _

"_I just want to make sure I don't miss anything," Ted said from behind the camera. "One day you'll want to look back and remember this." _

"_I highly doubt I'll be nostalgic for roast potatoes," she said. _

_Ted zoomed in on her impatient face, then panned the camera to look at each of the other two in turn. Only Dora smiled and waved._

"_I will be," Ted said, zooming back out again. "You'll have to take all kinds of videos for me to watch when I get back." _

_The camera swung down to look at the floor as Dora said "Back? From where?" and then the screen turned blue again. _

_The fuzzy outline of a glowing angel came into focus. She dropped her hands and panted a little before returning to her original pose, singing out a long, sweet note. The camera zoomed out and the dim image of a Christmas tree covered in fairy lights and tinsel filled the screen. A few neatly wrapped gifts sat beneath the bowed branches. A fire crackled in the hearth. The camera turned and Dora and her husband appeared, sitting together on the sofa, fingers intertwined. Beneath her snowman sweater, Dora's stomach bumped out quite a bit. Her other hand rested on the top of it. _

"_Smile for your father," her mother said from behind the camera. _

_Dora smiled, but it was without the energy from before. _

"_You too, Remus." _

_Dora's husband waved, doing his best to look cheerful, but the worry never left his face. As the camera moved back to the tree, a few of his murmured words were picked up. "…Went back to Grimauld Place again, but I didn't really think they'd be there. Nearly five months…."_

"_They'll turn up…" _

_The screen flickered and then the camera was at a different angle. The room was darker, and the three of them were opening up gifts. _

_Remus held up a book in the firelight. _

"_Thank you, Andromeda. It's lovely," he said, nodding to his mother-in-law. _

"_Here, we've got one for you, too, Mum," Dora chirped, handing her mother a package wrapped in painfully bright florescent paper. _

_Andromeda took the package smiling at her daughter so she didn't have to wince at the paper. She tore it open and a surprised and touched expression came over her. _

"_It's wonderful," she said, lifting out an ornately framed wedding portrait. "How ever did you get it? We didn't hire a photographer…." _

"_Ginny helped us," Dora beamed, tucking herself under Remus's arm. "One of her friends is good with film. He got it off of Dad's camera," she said, nodding toward the camera recording them all from the corner. "We knew you… well, that wasn't how you wanted my wedding to be, so I thought maybe… do you like it?" _

"_I love it, dear." She leaned forward to embrace her daughter, kissing her cheek. _

_They murmured together for a while, evidently forgetting the camera. Dora fell asleep on the sofa and Remus carried her up the stairs. Andromeda stood and gazed at the Christmas tree for a while before turning and coming toward the corner. A moment later the screen had gone blank. _

_When it came back to life, Dora once more filled the camera's eye. Her hair was darker, longer, her face more tired and paler. She was curled up on the sofa, clad in baggy pajamas. _

"_Mum," she groaned, turning away from the camera. "You're as bad as Dad used to be with that thing. We don't need to remember me looking gross." _

"_My daughter could never look gross," Andromeda insisted. "Tell her, Remus," she added, swinging the camera around to focus on Remus, leaning against the windowsill a few feet away. He smiled sheepishly. _

"_Of course not. You're always beautiful, Dora," he said quietly. _

_The camera swung back to Dora who had hidden her face behind a pillow. "You're required by law to say that, you're my husband." _

_Remus's quiet snort of laughter came from off-camera. Dora lowered the pillow, looking over at him incredulously. "Did you, Remus Lupin, just snort?" she asked. _

_His expression must have gotten to her because a laugh bubbled up. She threw her head back, laughing loud and clear and she looked young and happy again. _

_Then a hand flew to her stomach and her face lit up with a whole new kind of joy. "He's thinks it's funny too," she said, looking over at Remus with a small smirk. "He's kicking again." _

_Fade to blue for a moment, and then – _

_It was the dark living room again, the stair rail passed across the bottom of the screen at first, but the camera zoomed in. Dora sat in the rocking chair under a pool of soft lamplight. She looked even more exhausted and older than before, but there was an air of utter contentment about her as she cooed to the bundle in her arms, rocking gently back and forth. She was completely oblivious to the camera. _

_As she set aside the empty bottle, a baby's sharp cry of protest rose up, but her soft voice quickly quieted it. _

"_Are you my sunshine boy, today?" she murmured, stroking the top of the baby's head, which just poked out of his blankets, fine, soft hair appearing to be canary yellow. "My little sunshine…" _

_She laughed softly as the baby's hand fluttered and let his fingers catch her pinky. Then she started to sing softly, rocking him. _

"_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine._

_You make me happy when skies are gray._

_You'll never know, dear, how much I love you._

_Please don't take my sunshine away…" _

_Her rocking slowed, and she stood up, eyes never leaving the baby's face. She made her way to the basinet in the corner and laid him in it, bending low to kiss his forehead. _

"_Goodnight, Teddy. Sweet dreams…." _

The screen went blank. The video camera stopped whirring. The lights flickered out, and Teddy suddenly became aware of how dark the attic had gotten. With trembling hands, he laid the camera aside and drew his knees up to his face.

There was a movement by the door, and he jumped. His grandmother stood at the top of the stairs. She looked odd and it took him a moment to realize it was because her face was streaked with tears. She must have been standing there a while.

Teddy didn't realize he was sobbing until her arms were around him and he could feel his chest heaving, see the tears soaking her shoulder. And even though he was really getting to be too big and she was really getting to be too old, she lifted him up and carried him down the attic steps, across the hall, and down into the sitting room. The same sitting room his parents had gotten married in. The same sitting room they'd opened their last Christmas gifts, laughed together in. The same sitting room his mother had rocked him to sleep in.

"I m-miss her," he cried, burying his head in his grandmother's shoulder because he didn't want to look at the room.

"Me too," she murmured, rubbing his back. "Me too."

Eventually Teddy ran out of tears. He sat gulping and hiccupping and staring at his hands with red eyes. His mother's voice, her laughter, her singing swirled around him and he realized that she had already told him how much she loved him. But he hadn't ever said it back.

In a flash, Teddy had jumped off the sofa and was running up the stairs. His grandmother's startled cry from behind him didn't even slow him down. He tore across the hall and flung his bedroom door open, making a bee-line for the desk tucked in the corner.

"Teddy, what are you doing?" Gran asked slightly breathlessly, leaning against his doorframe and watching him yank open drawers and pull out paper and scissors, glue and markers. He didn't answer, just flung himself down in his desk chair and set to work, tongue poking out the side of his mouth.

Scraps of paper went flying, marker caps rolled to the floor. Gran sat down on his bed, watching him work furiously, but she didn't ask any more questions.

At long last, Teddy dropped his marker and sat back in his chair, shoulders slumping from the effort. In his hands he held a heart cut out of pink construction paper, a bit misshapen, but definitely a heart. He folded it open and a bright yellow construction paper sun blossomed on the inside of the card. Bluebirds sang in the corners, and in the middle of the sun's yellow disk were written two words: "Love, Teddy".

"Can we send it to her?" he asked, holding the card out for his grandmother to look at.

"Send it…?" she said, taking the card and staring down at the sun in the middle of it.

"To Mum for Valentine's day," Teddy clarified. "Arrow can find anyone. Harry told me so at Christmas."

Andromeda looked from the card to her grandson's eager, tearstained face.

"Well, if Harry says so, it must be true," she said, voice cracking slightly.

Teddy flew off his chair. They went down to the kitchen where the barn owl Harry and Ginny had given Andromeda for Christmas perched, head under his wing.

"Take good care of this," Teddy told the bird as he carefully attached the valentine to its leg.

Arrow blinked at Andromeda as though asking for more instructions, but Teddy was already carrying him to the window, sticking his arm out of it, and prompting the bird to take off. Arrow had no choice but to launch himself into the sky. Teddy watched him disappea before pulling the window shut.

Then he turned to face his grandmother.

"I just had to tell her that," he explained, hopping down from the counter. "She can't send me a valentine like everyone else's mums do, but I forgot I still could."

XxX

Teddy's grandmother tucked him in that night. She hadn't sat on the edge of his bed and tucked the blankets snuggly around him since he was very little, but she did that night.

"You're a good boy, Teddy," she told him, kissing his cheek. "I know your mum – and your dad – are very proud of you."

"I think they miss me, too," Teddy said, burrowing into his blankets.

"I'm sure of it," his grandmother murmured.

She stood up and turned off the lamp. Teddy didn't know if it was a memory or a dream or something else, but after she had shut the door behind her, and he was drifting off to sleep, he heard his mother's voice saying, _"Goodnight, Teddy. Sweet dreams…."_

**A/N: Alright, I write a lot of kind of sad stuff, but this is the first time I've nearly cried while writing a story. I think it was the song. My mom used to sing it to me. Of course, she's still here to sing it to me now if I asked her to, but it still makes me sad. Teddy and Tonks was my mother/child pair for this one and thecompletebookworm wanted to read about Andromeda and Teddy, so I hope I managed to take care of both of those well enough to satisfy. Do let me know what you thought! **

**Well I hope you liked it. I hear it's protocol to leave chocolates out when you write a sad story, so I'm leaving you all a big bag of chocolate chip cookies. Make sure everyone gets some. **


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